Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PETITION

British Museum

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked by the Trustees of the British Museum to present a Petition, which they have to submit to this House each year, explaining their financial position and praying for aid. The Petition recites the funded income of the Trustees, and points out that the establishment is, necessarily, attended with an expense far beyond the annual production of the funds and the Trust cannot, with benefit to the public, be carried on without the aid of Parliament.
It concludes with this Prayer:
Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray your Honourable House to grant them such further support towards enabling them to carry on the execution of the Trust reposed in them by Parliament, for the general benefit of learning and useful knowledge, as to your House shall seem meet.—[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

Petition referred to the Committee of Supply.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

£1 Notes

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he intends to withdraw from circulation all the old £1 notes as a measure against tax evasion.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): It is not proposed to call in the old £1 notes from circulation as suggested by my hon. Friend. But I am advised that most of the old notes which are in active circulation are likely to be replaced in the ordinary course of events within the next eighteen months.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Will not my hon. Friend reconsider this question? It is an old one. Is he not aware, because if he is not he is probably the only person who is not, that there are hundreds of millions of £1 notes up chimneys, under mattresses and in pillows on which tax never has been and never will be paid?

Mr. Barber: As a result of my hon. Friend's Question, the Inland Revenue considered this suggestion again, which, as my hon. Friend pointed out, is not a new one. The Inland Revenue is still of the opinion that the comparatively small advantage of detecting tax evasion would not justify the immense amount of work involved.

Mr. Lipton: How does the Inland Revenue know that only a small amount is involved, in view of the well-known habit of tax dodgers to keep large sums in Treasury notes hidden under the bed and in other parts of the house? Would it not help to winkle out tax dodgers if the Treasury said that unless all Treasury notes were handed into a bank by a certain date they would cease to be legal tender?

Mr. Barber: I am sure that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue will take note of the hon. Gentleman's expertise. In fairness, I think it is reasonable to rely on the judgment of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue who have great experience in this matter.

Sir T. Moore: In this connection, would my hon. Friend consider withdrawing the ugly and unpleasing new notes and replacing them with something more worthy of Britain?

Mr. Lipton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many new and old £1 notes are in circulation; and when he will withdraw the old £1 notes from circulation.

Mr. Barber: On 6th April, approximately 1,180 million old and 60 million new £1 notes were in circulation. It is not proposed to withdraw the old £1 notes from circulation, but most of those which are in active circulation are likely to be replaced in the ordinary course of events within the next eighteen months.

Mr. Lipton: Will the Minister not say that unless the old notes are banked within the next eighteen months they will cease to be legal tender? Is he not aware that out of the £1,100 million old notes supposed to be in circulation quite a proportion of them are tucked away by Income Tax dodgers?

Mr. Barber: I have already paid tribute to the right hon. Gentleman's knowledge of these matters [Laughter.] As I said earlier, to be a little more serious, the Inland Revenue did, as soon as my hon. Friend's Question was put down, reconsider this matter, and it also, of course, took into account what occurred in other countries shortly after the war. The Department still feels that it would not really be worth while.

Iron and Steel Realisation Agency (Subsidiaries)

Mr. Marquand: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on how many occasions since January, 1959, the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency has consulted the Iron and Steel Board, in accordance with the provisions of Section 19 (7) of the Iron and Steel Act, 1953, concerning the grouping or regrouping of any of its subsidiaries.

Mr. Barber: One, Sir.

Mr. Marquand: Was that in any way connected with the firm of Gjeers Mills Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Agency, which has a factory in my constituency?

Mr. Barber: No, Sir. The one case concerned a sale by Richard Thomas and Baldwins to the Llanelly Steel Company of a 40 per cent. holding in the Llanelly Foundry and Engineering Company.

Mr. Marquand: May I have an assurance that if and when any proposal is made to amalgamate Gjeers Mills Limited with any other concern early notice will be given to the House? Is the Economic Secretary aware that there is great anxiety in Tees-side generally that there may be an intention to close down this firm making hematite iron, or amalgamate it with a firm operating on the West Coast which would stop the production of hematite iron altogether on the North-East Coast, which we would regard as deplorable?

Mr. Barber: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, under the Section of the Iron and Steel Act to which he referred, before the Agency can carry out any grouping or regrouping of its subsidiary undertakings it has to consult the Iron and Steel Board. I have no doubt that if that Section to which the right hon. Gentleman referred is involved it will carry out its statutory duties.

Mr. Marquand: As the hon. Gentleman is aware, I know that it must consult the Board, but my anxiety arises from the fact that when another undertaking making hematite iron in my constituency was closed down we got no information about it until three weeks before the event took place.

Mr. Barber: I do not think I can be expected to answer questions about particular cases which do not arise under this Question.

Richard Thomas and Baldwins Ltd.

Mr. A. J. Irvine: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent the agreement between Her Majesty's Government and Richard Thomas and Baldwins Ltd. for a loan to a maximum of £70 million to the company will affect the rate of progress of devesting the remaining assets which are held by the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency.

Mr. Barber: The House has already been informed that it is the Government's intention to proceed with devesting as


energetically as possible, but I cannot answer the hypothetical question on the rate of progress which might be achieved.

Mr. Irvine: Will the Economic Secretary give a more forthcoming reply? Here is an asset whose capital structure is greatly affected by the loan of public money. Surely that is likely to have an effect on the timetable of the investing, and should not that effect be fully explained to the House?

Mr. Barber: At the time when the loan of £70 million was announced to the House the need for the development was not questioned, and the extent to which it may affect the rate of progress of devesting is, I think, a matter of speculation.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the workers in industry all over the country, and in South Wales in particular, have played a very active part in the company's great success, and they do not desire to see it denationalised at all?

Mr. Barber: I do not accept the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, but I certainly fully subscribe to what he says about the part played by those working in the industry.

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proposals he has received from private financial groups to participate in the equity of Richard Thomas and Baldwin's when the latter company is turned over to private ownership.

Mr. Barber: The Government have informed the House about their general policy and expectations in the de-nationalisation of steel. I cannot, however, answer specific questions about the current activities of the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency in relation to possible future operations.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is it not the fact that, at any rate, one very prominent takeover tycoon has declared a very big interest in trying to get at the rich pickings from denationalisation of State-owned steel, and does not that make absolute nonsense of Government policy? Does the hon. Gentleman really maintain that it is better for the industry that it should be run by

financiers and take-over tycoons than by organisations responsible to the community?

Mr. Barber: The right hon. Gentleman has made his point, but he will probably agree that it would really be most inappropriate if I—or indeed, any Minister—were to comment on the current activities of the Agency in relation to possible future disposals.

Mr. Wilson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I was concerned not with making a point but with getting information from him as asked for in Question No. 12 and which he has so far not answered? Will the hon. Gentleman state what representations have been made to the Treasury and what bids have been received for this nationally-owned asset when it is turned over to private ownership?

Mr. Barber: In the debate which we had on 22nd March I said we were hopeful that we would be able to make significant progress in disposals in the course of this year, and I have no doubt that there will be other newspaper speculations in the months to come. I think it would be most inappropriate and, indeed, would prejudice the statutory duty of the Agency if I said any more.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Can the Minister say if the Realisation Agency can dispose of the equity of a company to which this House has just voted £70 million without the Government being consulted?

Mr. Barber: That is another question. I was asked by the right hon. Gentleman what proposals have been received, and I have said as much as I can on that matter. If the right hon. Gentleman will put down a Question on the other point, I will do my best to answer it.

Mr. Wilson: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I give notice that we shall return to this subject on another occasion.

Gross National Product and Taxation

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what percentage of the gross national product he estimates will be taken by central Government taxes on expenditure in the present financial year;
(2) what proportion of the estimated national income for 1960–61 will go in tax under his Budget proposals; and how this compares with 1959–60.

Mr. Barber: Precise figures for the financial year 1960–61 are not available, but it is not expected that the proportion of tax to gross national product will differ much from that for 1959. In the calendar year 1959, central Government taxes on expenditure amounted to about 12 per cent. of the gross national product at factor cost, and total central Government Revenue from taxes to about 26 per cent. of gross national product.

Mr. Digby: Would my hon. Friend agree that it is highly desirable in the long run, whatever the case may be this year, that the figure given in reply to my second Question should fall below 25 per cent., and is it not the fact that the figure which my hon. Friend has given me shows that it has increased by 1 per cent. this year? With regard to my Question No. 5. is it not a fact that these taxes really represent the Chancellor's contribution to keeping up prices, and, again, whatever the case may be this year, does he not agree that in future years it is desirable that these taxes should come down?

Mr. Barber: I certainly do not quarrel with the objective my hon. Friend has in mind, but I think it is fair to point out that in the four years from 1948 to 1951, central Government taxes were, on average, 33 per cent. of the gross national product and that in the last four years that figure of 33 per cent. has fallen to 26 per cent.

Plowden Committee (Report)

Mr. Turton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has yet received any report from the Plowden Committee; and in what form he proposes to communicate to the House reports and recommendations from this Committee.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): No, Sir. The Committee will make confidential recommendations to Her Majesty's Government; but, as has already been promised, the conclusions reached by the Government on them will be put before the House in due course. It is too soon to say how this will best be done.

Mr. Turton: Can my hon. Friend reconcile that reply with the statement made in this House on 16th March by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, when he suggested that the House should await the Report of this inquiry before the House took further the question of Treasury control? Will he take care that the existence of the Plowden Committee does not postpone or prevent the House discharging its proper function of discussing Treasury control?

Sir E. Boyle: I can assure my right hon. Friend we are well aware that this subject of control of expenditure is a matter of keen concern to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, but I just remind him that the reason for the confidential status of this Report is simply that the Committee is advising the Government, at least in part, on the way they should conduct their own internal finance. The Select Committee which recommended the further inquiry recognised its partly confidential nature, because it proposed that it should have access to Cabinet papers. I do not think there is any inconsistency between the object of the Committee and the concern felt about Treasury control on both sides of the House.

Mr. H. Wilson: But will the Financial Secretary—who, I think, is giving a lot of attention to this question—in order to help the fuller Parliamentary control of expenditure, particularly in relation to securing value for money, consider whether it would not be desirable that the House should set aside two or three days every year to debate the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee, where those bear on specific items of continuing expenditure? Does he not feel that acceptance of a proposal like that would enable the House as a whole to play a real part while, at the same time, making the fullest use of the expertise, and very hard work, of the members of the two Committees?

Sir E. Boyle: That, of course, is a much wider question than that on the Order Paper, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who comes into these matters a very great deal, will take note of the right hon. Gentleman's point.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Swingler.

Sir G. Nicholson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I was very closely connected with the production of the Report on Treasury control by the Estimates Committee, can I ask a supplementary question?

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid not. It is my fault. I am anxious about our progress, which at present is extremely poor.

Purchase Tax

Mr. Swingler: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what annual loss of revenue would result from the abolition of Purchase Tax on pottery.

Mr. Barber: About £2¾ million.

Mr. Swingler: When the Chancellor considers the concessions he will inevitably make during the Committee stage of the Finance Bill, will the Economic Secretary draw his right hon. Friend's attention to the fact that this tax had been abolished before the emergency Budget of 1955, that pottery is a necessity, and that the Treasury is in possession of evidence which shows the terrible harm that this tax has done to the industry?

Mr. Barber: As the hon. Gentleman knows, most pottery is now taxed at 12½ per cent. as a result of the reduction made in my right hon. Friend's Budget of last year. I understand that home market sales of pottery last year were the highest in any recent year.

Farming Losses, Scotland (Relief)

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many individuals in Scotland were relieved of farming losses in 1958, under Section 34 of the Income Tax Act, 1952; and what was the estimated amount of such loss.

Sir E. Boyle: Nearly 1,000 farmers received relief for losses in Scotland; the aggregate loss was about £1 million.

Mr. Hamilton: Does not the Financial Secretary think it a deplorable state of affairs that tax evasion should seem to be quite a thriving industry north of the Border, and elsewhere? Will he ensure that the steps about to be taken in the matter will be completely watertight in preventing this kind of practice?

Sir E. Boyle: I have a suspicion that we shall have quite a few hours devoted to this subject later in the season. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that all these matters will be taken into full consideration.

Theatre Workshop, Stratford (Publication)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that at a performance of a play sponsored by the Arts Council at Theatre Workshop, Stratford, on 23rd March, a Communist publication was displayed for sale in the refreshment room; and if he will make it a condition of his grant to the Council that its sponsorship be withdrawn from all productions in conjunction with which Communist publications are displayed for sale.

Sir E. Boyle: I am not prepared to instruct the Arts Council to exercise political discrimination in the allocation of its grant. I have, however, made inquiries into the incident in question. The publication "Music and Life" was offered for sale without any authority from the management of "Theatre Workshop", who took appropriate action as soon as the matter was brought to its notice.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him to bear in mind that this theatre has rather a Communist reputation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."]— and would he instruct the Secretary-General of the Arts Council to keep a careful watch on the theatre's activities in future?

Sir E. Boyle: Theatre Workshop has, in fact, done some good work, and I can assure my hon. Friend that I am quite satisfied that, in this particular case, as soon as the matter was brought to its notice, it took all the action that could have been expected of it from any part of the House. I would add: do not let us be too much influenced by the tittle tattle that appears in the daily Press, particularly in some sections of it.

Mr. Jay: Surely, Communist publications are perfectly legal in this country— this is not South Africa—and unless there is some rule against any political propaganda in this organisation, is it not


just as reasonable to have Communist publications as it would be to have Tory publications?

Sir E. Boyle: I think it is a matter of degree. There are occasions when the most liberal and tolerant of citizens could feel that some Communist publication was not altogether in place. I think that on this occasion the management of Theatre Workshop took the obviously right course.

Private Firms (Assistance)

Mr. Grimond: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will ensure that the House of Commons is informed of all proposals to assist private firms from public funds; and that, in the case of large loans, grants or other assistance, opportunity will be given for discussion.

Mr. Barber: All measures by the Government to assist private firms from public funds are carried out under powers conferred by Parliament. But it would be wrong in principle for the Government as a general rule to publish detailed information about financial transactions which it enters into under these powers with individuals or companies. Apart from other obvious objections to its doing so, general publication of details of such confidential transactions would hamper the execution of the policies which Parliament has approved.

Mr. Grimond: Is this not rather unsatisfactory from Parliament's point of view? Will the Minister not agree that these grants and loans are bound, sooner or later, to be put in the account of the companies concerned and therefore the information will be available to the public? Should not Parliament be informed in advance? Will the Minister cast his mind back to the early hours of one morning when the Leader of the House undertook to inform Parliament if more loans were made under the Iron and Steel Bill. If there is a case under that Bill, should we not also be informed of loans to the aircraft industry?

Mr. Barber: I will certainly consider what the hon. Gentleman says about the aircraft industry, and I will draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to what he has said with regard to the opportunity for this House debating these matters. But I think that, in general, one must dis-

tinguish between general legislation and legislation which is directed to specific firms or companies.
In the case of the Iron and Steel (Financial Provisions) Bill, which was concerned with loans to collieries, that was legislation directed to a specific company. So far as general legislation is concerned, one of the difficulties which immediately comes to mind is that if certain conditions are imposed on, say, company A and are not imposed on company B, because the first company is perhaps less efficient than the second, it may well be that we should not be able to encourage companies to do what the House by legislation wants them to do if we disclosed the full details.

Mr. Jay: Would not the Minister agree that, though general information is highly desirable, at least in the case of firms invited to set up factories in unemployment areas, too much private detail might deter them from doing what we all want them to do?

Mr. Barber: Whilst I realise that hon. Members on both sides of the House wish to have as much information as possible, there is, I think, a limit to what we can do if we are to carry out the objective of Parliament.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Cartridges

Mr. Ridley: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now refer the manufacture of cartridges to the Monopolies Commission for investigation.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): New references to the Commission are under consideration and no decision has yet been taken.

Mr. Ridley: When a matter like this is suggested to be referred to the Monopolies Commission, there is inevitably doubt in the minds of producers and consumers. Would it not be better if my hon. Friend could come to a decision as soon as possible to relieve this doubt?

Mr. Erroll: A number of subjects are considered by my right hon. Friend from time to time, and this and many others are some of them.

Tourist Trade (Guide)

Mr. Mathew: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make arrangements with the British Travel and Holidays Association to publish, in addition to their hotel guide, a British equivalent of the successful French guide, "Michelin," with comprehensive and attractively presented information as to hotel and other holiday accommodation, gastronomic facilities, historical information, and other tourist attractions in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Erroll: The British Travel and Holidays Association has already looked at the possibility of publishing a Michelin-type guide for the United Kingdom. I understand that the Association has encountered serious difficulties, but that it has not given up hope of being able to publish a guide of this nature.

Mr. Mathew: Should not the Minister give the British Travel and Holidays Association the greatest encouragement in this matter, because my hon. Friend will be aware that there is a growing demand among prospective foreign visitors to this country for such a publication and that such a publication might well be economic in view of the fact that the Association already has a highly developed information and research service on which it could be based?

Mr. Erroll: The research service would, of course, have to be greatly expanded, and there are substantial difficulties about which I would like to inform my hon. Friend.

Central West Fife

Mr. W. Hamilton: asked the President of the Board of Trade when the 450 new jobs in Central West Fife are expected to materialise; and how many of them are expected to be for man, women, and juveniles, respectively.

Mr. Erroll: It is hoped these jobs will materialise over the next few months. Approximately 300 of them will be mainly for male juveniles and the majority of the balance will be for men.

Northern Ireland

Mr. McMaster: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps to bring to the attention of the

47,000 leading manufacturing establishments circularised on 31st March, 1960, similar details of the facilities for industrial development in Northern Ireland to those which he has undertaken to include in the reprint of the Board of Trade leaflet entitled "Expanding Industry."

Mr. Erroll: I am glad to say that this is not necessary. I am informed that the Northern Ireland Government circularised these firms about a year ago giving them particulars of the schemes of assistance offered by the Northern Ireland Government. The facilities have not altered since then.

Mr. McMaster: Whilst thanking my hon. Friend for his reply, may I ask him whether, if events have changed over the past year, he will agree to bring to the attention of any and every one of the 47,000 firms which he has recently circularised, and which asked the Board of Trade for further information before expanding their businesses, particulars of the many and various facilities and capital and financial inducement and other help which the Government of Northern Ireland gives to new industries coming to Northern Ireland?

Mr. Erroll: The reason for the circularisation of the Board of Trade pamphlet was because there had been a fundamental change in the legislation for Great Britain whereas there has been no change in legislation concerning this matter in Northern Ireland. The position is in that regard unchanged. I think that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary made reference last week to including reference to Northern Ireland facilities in a reprint of the pamphlet.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

University College

Mr. Marquand: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what request he has received from the Government of the West Indies for further assistance to the University College of the West Indies, following upon the recommendations of the Cato Committee concerning the future of the college; and what reply he has given.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): The University


College of the West Indies have been allocated £1 million from the money made available under the CD. and W. (Amendment) Act, 1959. In addition, the Government of the West Indies have sought my approval to the allocation to the University College of £600,000 from the West Indies reserve of colonial development and welfare funds. I have agreed in principle, it being understood that the money will not be called for until the allocation of £1 million has been fully committed by the University College Authorities and until the contributing Governments have agreed to meet the resulting recurrent expenditure.

Mr. Marquand: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is a highly satisfactory statement which will give great pleasure not only in the West Indies but throughout the academic world of the Commonwealth? Is he aware also that it is most unlikely that any of the money will be wasted, as the record of University College is amazingly good?

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA

Preservation of Public Security Bill

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why he has authorised the introduction in the Northern Rhodesian Legislative Council of the Preservation of Public Security Bill, which gives the Governor absolute power over all publications in the territory.

Mr. Iain Macleod: These powers do not exist in normal conditions, and can only be invoked when the Governor is satisfied that a threat to public security exists.

Mr. Brockway: May I welcome the right hon. Gentleman on his return—

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Sir L. Plummer: He has been setting the people free.

Hon. Members: Some of the people.

Mr. Brockway: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that journalists belonging to all parties and having different racial views have protested very strongly in Northern Rhodesia against this Bill? Will he take steps to see that it is administered in a

way which does not mean that there will be any restriction on liberty of writing?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, certainly. That will be watched closely. I am sure that the journalists who protest about this are, to some extent, under a misapprehension because, as I have explained many times to the House, the object of this legislation is to prevent and not to encourage, situations which lead to emergencies. I believe it will have that effect.

Disturbances

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will set up an inquiry into the recent disturbances which have taken place in Northern Rhodesia.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No, Sir. There have been no recent disturbances in Northern Rhodesia on any scale which would justify the setting up of a commission of inquiry.

Mr. Thomson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am referring to the disturbances in the schools in Northern Rhodesia and that the leadership of the United National Independence Party, which much deplores violence, would welcome an inquiry? Is he aware that the worst way to deal with this matter is to close down the schools when the need for education is so urgent and that the best way is to use the means he has adopted in Nyasaland, which have offered a real hope of constitutional advance?

Mr. Macleod: I am afraid I completely misread the Question. I thought it related to the even more recent disturbances which centred round my visit to Northern Rhodesia, but I can meet the hon. Member on the other point he has made, because there have been cases of indiscipline and insubordination which have led to the closure of certain schools and a commission of inquiry is to examine the circumstances which led to that. I am sorry I did not understand the hon. Member's Question.

Copperbelt Technical Foundation

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

29.Mr. J. HYND: To ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, what was the date of the formal approach by the


Federal Government to the Northern Rhodesian Government requesting the latter to take over the Copperbelt Technical Foundation in Northern Rhodesia from the Anglo-American Corporation and the Rhodesian Selection Trust; what reply was sent to the Federal Government; and if he will ensure that the Foundation will be run by the Northern Rhodesiao Government on multiracial lines.

Mr. Hynd: May I draw attention to the fact that the formulation of the Question on the Order Paper is far removed from the terms in which I first put it down? The first part does not seem to make sense, because the Federal Government have made no approach. I should still like to have an answer to the second part of the Question.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I shall stick to the brief. So far as I am aware, the Federal Government have made no request that the Northern Rhodesdan Government should take over the Copper-belt Technical Foundation. The admission of non-Europeans is a matter for the Foundation to decide.
Improvising an answer to the second part of the Question, of course the association of non-Europeans is a matter for the Foundation to decide, but one which it has been recently closely examining.

Mr. Hynd: Surely the whole point about this is that the Foundation wants to give up this responsibility and has asked both the Federal and Northern Rhodesian Governments to take it over for the purpose of opening it up for Africans and whites? The Federal Government will not do so, but say the Territorial Government are not permitted to do so because this is a question of African education.
In view of the stupid situation which is preventing an all-racial technical college for the copper mines being in operation, will not the right hon. Gentleman try to sort the thing out one way or the other? Will he encourage the Northern Rhodesian Government to take it over and open it up for all-racial education? Will he bring it before the Monckton Commission, or do something about it?

Mr. Macleod: The Northern Rhodesian Government were asked some time ago

to make a grant to provide halls for the Foundation but refused because, as the hon. Member knows, the technical education was not open to non-Europeans. This is a matter which has recently been discussed by the Foundation. All I can say is that I shall study what the hon. Member has said and, if there is any way in which I can help along the lines the hon. Member has indicated, I shall try to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

Mr. Jomo Kenyatta and Mr. Achieng Oneko

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will now make immediate arrangements for the release of Mr. Jomo Kenyatta, Mr. Achieng Oneko and others still under political restriction in Kenya.

Mr. Iain Macleod: No, Sir. The case of each person under restriction is regularly reviewed. It remains the policy that no person will be released while he is a danger to security.

Mr. Stonehouse: The Colonial Secretary will be aware that the political climate in Kenya has been much improved since his success at the Kenya Constitutional Conference. Is he aware that good will will be still further improved if Jomo Kenyatta is released? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Will he, therefore, follow his precedent in regard to Dr. Banda and set more people free and so make more people in Kenya happy? Is he aware that in any case Jomo Kenyatta will be released in due course? Would it not be better that he be released before independence so that all the political leaders can adjust themselves to the part which he will play in the political life in Kenya?

Mr. Macleod: All cases are regularly reviewed. The hon. Member has addressed his supplementary question entirely to the case of Mr. Kenyatta. When I was asked this question on my return from Africa yesterday, I made it quite clear that in my view the situation in Nyasaland a year ago is worlds away from the evil nature of the occurrences which took place in Kenya in those years.


The situation in relation to Kenyatta is that he is a man who was convicted in the courts and his conviction was confirmed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Although his case is, and will continue to be, the subject of regular review, the Governor does not feel—I fully support him in this—that it would help the situation in Kenya if he were released.

Mr. Stonehouse: May I ask the Colonial Secretary to address himself to the case of Mr. Achieng Oneko, who was completely acquitted of the charges made against him and immediately rearrested and has been in restriction since that time? Will he see that he, at least, is released?

Mr. Macleod: I will not give an undertaking that he will be released, but I agree that these cases are different for the reasons mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. I know, because I spoke to the Governor only a few hours ago in Nairobi about this case of Achieng Oneko, that he is reviewing every case, including this case and the case of the senior Chief Koinange. I hope to have the results of these reviews fairly soon.

Employment

Mr. Swingler: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the extent of unemployment in Kenya, particularly amongst those released from detention; and what steps are being taken to reduce and abolish it.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The Kenya Government recently appointed a Commissioner to carry out a survey of unemployment and under-employment in the Colony with the object of obtaining information on which to base remedial measures. Meanwhile resettlement and relief schemes are being carried out in the Central Province to help landless ex-detainees and others.

Mr. Swingler: The Colonial Secretary will have noticed that in the debate in another place recently those noble Lords with experience of Kenya were concerned about this problem, and especially the effect of unemployment among those recently released from detention who felt themselves completely frustrated? Will he take some urgent action to provide economic opportunities for Kenya?

Mr. Macleod: I am conscious of that point. I know that the Kenya Government are also conscious of it and are trying to deal with it by land consolidation and agrarian reform. I believe the report of the Commissioner will be a great help to us in dealing with the matters raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Assaults

Sir Richard Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many native patients in the George VI Hospital at Nairobi are casualties due to assaults or woundings by other Africans; how many of these native patients are Government servants; and in how many cases their assailants have been arrested.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The clinical notes on patients at the hospital do not contain the information sought, and crime statistics are not kept on a racial basis.

Sir R. Glyn: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is considerable anxiety in Kenya owing to the fact that a number of loyal natives have been assaulted recently? Is he further aware that those anxieties are increased by the belief that the assailants are in some cases former Mau Mau detainees? Is he satisfied that everything possible is being done to prevent a repetition of these offences?

Mr. Macleod: Yes, I agree there is anxiety. Naturally, when about 79,000 people who have been in detention are released, which is what has been done over the last year or two, it is not surprising if there is a certain increase in the crime statistics. I have no evidence at all that any Government servants have been made the special target for the sort of assaults mentioned by my hon. Friend, but it is a situation on which I will keep a careful watch.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALTA

Constitution

Mr. Brockway: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is now able to state what constitutional changes are proposed in Malta with a view to reestablishing a democratically-elected Parliament.

Mr. Iain Macleod: I have nothing yet to add to the answer which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for


the Colonies gave on 28th January to my hon. Friend the Member for Haltem-price (Mr. Wall).

Mr. Brockway: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to regard this problem from a new point of view, just as he has the problem of Central Africa? Is it not a scandal that in Malta there should have been no elected Legislature for over two years and that the Governor should just have been governing by decree? Can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the report in Malta that it is proposed to have a nominated second Chamber—which would be a retrogression to the past—is not true?

Mr. Macleod: I have not heard of any proposal for a nominated second Chamber. I agree that this is an unsatisfactory situation, and I want to bring the Governor's rule to an end as soon as I can. I hope to be able to give close personal attention to this question of Malta over the next few months.

Oral Answers to Questions — SIERRA LEONE

Constitution

Mr. R. Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what submissions he has received from representatives of the Creole community of Freetown concerning proposed constitutional changes in Sierra Leone; and what was the nature of his reply.

Mr. Iain Macleod: The submission I have received came from two members of the Settlers' Descendants Union. They sought complete separation of the Colony from the Protectorate and a separate form of Government for the Colony. I have asked the Governor to tell the two petitioners that I have taken note of their views.

Mr. Edwards: Is the Minister aware that this very small minority of Creoles in Freetown have exceptional facilities for B.B.C. television in this country and in their broadcasts have stated that the people in the Protectorate are pagans and cannibals? Is he aware that I hope he will agree that this kind of malicious and untruthful propaganda will in no way influence the discussions at the Conference?

Mr. Macleod: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not think these representations are at all important, and they will not influence the Conference which is to take place.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Corporal and Capital Punishment

Sir T. Moore: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in view of the fact that 78 per cent. of the population is now in favour of the restoration of corporal punishment for crimes of violence against the person and that 74 per cent. is in favour of capital punishment for all types of murder, if he will now reconsider his policy with regard to crime and punishment.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have seen a variety of analyses of the figures on which my hon. Friend bases his statements relative to the opinion of the population of the United Kingdom on these complex and difficult subjects. I should not be prepared to propose a further change in the law relating to capital punishment until sufficient time has elapsed to enable the effect of the Homicide Act, 1957, to be assessed. As I announced in the House on 28th January, I have referred the question of corporal punishment to my Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders and I await its report.

Sir T. Moore: Yes, I know, but surely with the democratic philosophy and faith of my right hon. Friend he feels that the will of the majority must prevail? Surely he agrees with that, otherwise government might as well be handed over to the Opposition, and God forbid that that should happen?

Mr. Butler: My philosophy is derived as much from John Stuart Mill as is the philosophy of anyone else in this House, but I think we have to mix the mixture a little between a poll of this sort, in which the answers are very varied—some of the conclusions were very different from what some hon. Members think— with the ordinary democratic process by which we are elected to this House'. I am quite ready to study the former and be guided by the latter, but I think that on matters like this we must introduce some small degree of science, and that I am attempting to do.

Miss Bacon: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain to his hon. Friend that it is not the job of Parliament to follow a privately-conducted public opinion poll, but rather to attempt to educate the public in regard to the facts in this case—facts which I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree show that flogging is not a deterrent?

Sir T. Moore: I never mentioned flogging.

Mr. Butler: It is precisely for reasons like that that I wish to put before the House as soon as I can a considered opinion on this subject. Meanwhile, I think we had better leave the matter as it has been left by this interchange.

Oil Heaters

Miss Bacon: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has as to the progress the manufacturers of drip-feed oil heaters are making in the modification of unsafe heaters.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I understand that the manufacturers are still working on the problems involved.

Miss Bacon: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am not referring to the new heaters which may be manufactured but to the progress which is being made in calling in those heaters which are already being used in 3 million homes? Has he any information to give about progress in that respect?

Mr. Butler: I understand from contact with them, as far as I can, that all the manufacturers are understood to be at work on these problems and are having discussions with the retail trade, that is, between the manufacturers and retail trade. Each manufacturer has his own particular problem. I would draw the hon. Lady's attention to the fact that the new British Standard was issued as recently as 11th April and they are having regard to that in their approach to the appliances already issued.

Mr. Fletcher: Can the Home Secretary say whether these adaptations will also be available for imported heaters not manufactured in this country?

Mr. Butler: That is one of the topics we have in mind in deciding what we

shall do on the receipt of the Molony Report and on what necessary or possible legislative steps to take to make the present situation a little more satisfactory.

Plastic Bags

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of the dangers to children and others, resulting from the use of large polythene and other plastic bags; and what steps he is taking in the matter.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Dennis Vosper): A considerable amount of publicity has already been given to this danger and my right hon. Friend is watching the position.

Mr. Fletcher: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there have been numerous tragedies in the United States as a result of which I understand that many dry cleaners are discontinuing the issue of these bags? Will he take whatever steps he can to make the public aware of these dangers?

Mr. Vosper: I am aware of what has happened in the United States. For that reason, representatives of manufacturers in this country recently came to the Home Office to discuss this risk, and they are continuing their investigation. So far as possible, my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health has encouraged considerable publicity in this matter.

Kou Teh-Lou

Sir L. Plummer: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what time elapsed between the application of Kou Teh-Lou, lately a cook at the Chinese Embassy, for political asylum and its being granted.

Mr. R. A. Butler: An application for permission to stay in this country was received on the 1st March and granted about a week later.

Sir L. Plummer: May I congratulate the Home Secretary on the speed he has shown in giving asylum to this lad, thus upholding the traditions of this country? Will he have conversations with the Secretary of State for Commonwealth


Relations and point out that two British citizens who fled from the terror of South Africa into the Commission Territories had to wait a fortnight before it was announced that they would be given asylum? Ought not the Commonwealth Relations Office to follow the expeditious example of the Home Office?

Mr. Butler: These matters are not on all fours because I have to follow a different practice in the United Kingdom. The rules and regulations have been known for a long time. There are very great difficulties in connection with the law relating to Protected Territories which are not the entire responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but he has given his mind to the subject. I think he has shown as great humanity as he could under present circumstances.

Union of South Africa (Refugees)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that on Thursday, 7th April, Mr. Ronald Segal and Mr. Oliver Tambo, two South African citizens who had escaped to Bechuanaland, were still uncertain if they would be allowed to come to the United Kingdom as political refugees; and what steps have been taken urgently to communicate to them an assurance that this will be permitted.

Mr. R. A. Butler: As I indicated in reply to Questions on the 4th April, there is no difficulty about the admission to the United Kingdom of British subjects or British protected persons.

Mr. Driberg: Does that assurance apply to these two particular cases? Could the right hon. Gentleman make it quite clear that they can come here, since a week ago they were still unsure and saying that their applications for permission to come here—or whatever steps they had taken—had not been replied to?

Mr. Butler: The practice and rules in regard to British subjects are well known. I shall go further and say that if a British subject were to arrive without a valid passport or travel document, we would ask him to produce such evidence as he could to prove that he is a British subject. That, I think, would cover the case as best we can.

Peppiatt Committee (Report)

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has now received the Report of the Peppiatt Committee.

Mr. R. A. Butler: Yes, Sir. The Report has now been published.

Mr. Fletcher: I have seen the Report which, as the Home Secretary is aware, recommends that there should be a levy on bookmakers amounting to between £1 million and £1¼ million a year and proposes that the levy should be statutory. Will the Home Secretary tell us whether he proposes to introduce Amendments to the Betting and Gaming Bill, recently issued from Committee, to give effect to these recommendations? What are his intentions about that Bill on Report?

Mr. Butler: The position is that we have just published, at 11 a.m. today, the Committee's Report. I should like to express our gratitude to the Chairman and his Committee for the speed with which they have produced the Report. I am also aware of its conclusions. I am not in a position to make an announcement at present, because I wish to obtain a certain amount of reaction to the Report. That is the object of publishing it. I should also like hon. Members to study it. I should not like to come to a conclusion until I have been able to assess a little better opinion on the receipt of this Report.
It is, therefore, not yet clear whether there will be time to introduce Amendments on Report stage of the Bill. That would all depend upon the nature of the Government's announcement, which I will make in due course, trying to give an opportunity and every occasion for the work of the Committee to be furthered. If the House will be patient, I will try to make a statement about this when I have obtained the initial reactions.

SOUTHERN RHODESIA (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Prime Minister if, in view of his discussions with the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia during his recent official visit to that Colony and of the importance of


the request being made by the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia for the protective clauses affecting Africans to be removed from that constitution, he will arrange to continue his discussions on this issue with Sir Edgar Whitehead during his forthcoming visit to the United Kingdom, and advise him that Her Majesty's Government will not agree to the request except with the full agreement and approval of the Africans concerned.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): The purpose of Sir Edgar Whitehead's forthcoming visit is to continue the discussions with my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations begun in November, 1959. As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 18th February, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that we warmly applaud the assurance which he has given to the Africans in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland that the protection which they enjoy from the United Kingdom will not be withdrawn except with their agreement? Is he further aware that the Africans in Southern Rhodesia are equally concerned that the protection which they enjoy from the United Kingdom should not be withdrawn? Will he give an asurance that there will be no back-room agreement with Sir Edgar Whitehead behind the backs of the Africans, who value this protection?

The Prime Minister: All these matters will be taken into careful consideration. These circumstances are not exactly the same, although I can see that they are to some extent similar.

Mr. Callaghan: Has the Prime Minister refreshed his memory with the terms of the Letters Patent under which Africans are subject to our protection in respect of
any conditions, disabilities or restrictions to which persons of European descent are not also subjected or made liable"?
In view of the fact that in the last 36 years of the history of this Colony no African has been elected to the Southern Rhodesian Parliament and that the franchise is denied to them, what steps will the Prime Minister take in order to ensure that African opinion agrees with

the views which Sir Edgar Whitehead proposes to put?

The Prime Minister: All these are very large matters which, as the hon. Member knows, are under review and discussion during the whole of this coming year. I think it would be wiser for me not to go into detail on them today.

Mr. Callaghan: While agreeing with the Prime Minister that this is a very large matter, surely this is all the more reason why the House of Commons should know what the Government's attitude is. Will he invite Sir Edgar Whitehead to bring with him some indication of the views of those over whom this House has thrown the mantel of its protection since 1923, so that the House may be apprised of their approach to this problem?

The Prime Minister: All these matters will be borne in mind. These arc preliminary discussions, and I think that it would be wiser to let this constructive year in African history develop. The Government are responsible to the House and they will not shrink from their responsibilities in these matters.

Mr. Gaitskell: If this constructive year in Africa is to develop fruitfully, would it not be as well to give the Africans in Southern Rhodesia the reassurance which they require in this matter?

The Prime Minister: I will refer to what I said on 18th February, when I said that
in the event of any change being made in the Constitution of Southern Rhodesia, the interest of Africans would of course be given full weight."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1960; Vol. 617, c. 1417.]

PRESIDENT DE GAULLE (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Prime Minister what discussions he had with the President of the French Republic during his recent visit to London regarding the political problems of the African Continent.

The Prime Minister: My talks with President de Gaulle were confidential, and it would not be proper for me to say what subjects were or were not discussed.

Mr. Thomson: Is the Prime Minister aware that since France has committed a large part of her N.A.T.O. forces to Algeria, inevitably Britain and the other N.A.T.O. Powers become identified in the eyes of the Africans with France's colonial war? Does he not agree that the great problem of reconciliation between the European and African races in Africa is, like peace, indivisible? Will he, therefore, take advantage of the good will created by President de Gaulle's visit to press on the French Government that they should give recognition to African nationalism in Algeria in the interests of Europe as a whole?

The Prime Minister: I should hardly like to be drawn into a discussion of the Algerian problem when the Question I was asked was what I had discussed with the President of the French Republic and my reply was that my discussions were confidential.

SUMMIT MEETING

Mr. Langford-Holt: asked the Prime Minister whether he will discuss with the heads of Governments of the United States of America, Russia and France at the Summit Conference means of increasing help to under-developed parts of the world.

The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, there is no formal agenda for the Summit Meeting, but if this subject were raised I should certainly be ready to discuss it.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA

Prime Minister's Speech

Mr. Lipton: asked the Prime Minister if he will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the text of his address to the South African Parliament in Cape Town on 3rd February last.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I am gratified by the interest that has been shown in this speech. But the procedure suggested would be neither usual nor, I think, appropriate.

Mr. Lipton: Is the Prime Minister aware that it would be helpful to many people if an official reprint of this speech were readily available? Is he

further aware that some of us would like to send a copy of the speech to the South African cricket team when they come here and to the secretary of the M.C.C., especially after yesterday's raids on the homes of the leaders of the non-racial South African sports associations?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that I should be acting in accordance with precedent if I were to publish, through the machinery of the House or the Stationery Office, the speech which I delivered, but if the hon. Member, who has been so gracious to me over this matter, would like it, I will see whether I can send him a copy of the speech.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I suggest that it would facilitate what my hon. Friend intends to do if the Prime Minister put a large number of copies in the Library.

The Prime Minister: I am anxious not to break tradition in this matter. As far as I know, no precedent of this kind exists.

Sir G. Nicholson: Is there not, by strange coincidence, a publishing house which bears the same name as that of the Prime Minister? Would he not consider asking it to print the speech, because I think there is a wide demand for copies of this magnificent speech?

The Prime Minister: I am not sure to whom the copyright belongs. I will make inquiries.

Mr. Gaitskell: It is surely very usual, when a speech of this kind is made, for copies to be placed in the Library. I think the Prime Minister will find that there are many precedents. Will he look into it?

The Prime Minister: If that is so, I will, but I cannot promise to bear the cost of printing the speech myself.

Mr. Lipton: How many copies of the speech may I have?

Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies

Mr. Driberg: asked the Prime Minister what further information he has received about citizens of the United Kingdom and British protected persons arrested recently in South Africa and detained without trial or charge; and if


he will endeavour to secure their release by making direct representations to the Prime Minister of the Union.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made yesterday by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations. So far as representations to the Prime Minister of the Union are concerned, the High Commissioner saw the Prime Minister on this subject last week before the attempt on his life and he has since been keeping in close touch with Ministers in the South African Government.

Mr. Driberg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Minister of State yesterday steadily refused to answer repeated questions urging him that Her Majesty's Government should make a direct demand to the South African Government for the release of these people? He refused to do that. Whether the right hon. Gentleman communicates with the Prime Minister or, at present, with the Deputy Prime Minister, cannot he take a somewhat more forthright attitude than the Minister of State took yesterday?

The Prime Minister: If the Minister of State refused yesterday, I should be very foolish to consent today.

Mr. Gresham-Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a good deal of feeling on both sides of the House on the matter and that it is felt that we should take firm action to ask for the release of these people, in particular of one of my constituents, Miss Stanton? Is he further aware that it is extremely difficult to get information out of South Africa? I have a letter in my pocket in reply to a cable from constituents in which the writer of the letter, a British subject in South Africa, dare not put his address and dare not refer to the matter of Miss Stanton at all? It is up to the Government to make representations.

The Prime Minister: That is the purpose of the communications which the High Commissioner is having with members of the Government.

Mr. Marquand: Will not the Prime Minister respond to what is the unanimous view of the House of Commons? Is he aware that yesterday,

when his hon. Friend made his statement, the whole House indicated by its attitude its disappointment with that statement? Is he further aware that these two United Kingdom subjects have been held in detention for two weeks without any charge being preferred against them and with little, if any, opportunity of even getting legal advice? Will he not speak out now as Prime Minister in the name of the whole country?

The Prime Minister: The object which I think we ought to follow is to try to see what help we can give. By far the best way is by making representations through the High Commissioner to the Ministers concerned.

Mr. Driberg: Can the Prime Minister not even ask that Miss Stanton and the others should be released on bail?

The Prime Minister: I have every confidence in the High Commissioner, who I am sure will do all he possibly can. and I am sure that this method is the one most likely to obtain what we hope to achieve.

Mr. Langford-Holt: Will my right hon. Friend at least say that there is no intention that this matter will drag on indefinitely? It has been going on now for two weeks, and this House is rightly jealous of the rights and privileges of those who are entitled to its protection.

The Prime Minister: Yes. I hope that it will not drag on. We shall do all that we can.

Mr. Gaitskell: Has the Prime Minister observed that, when a Canadian journalist was arrested, the Canadian Government made a strong and public protest, which resulted in his almost immediate release? Does not the Prime Minister think in this case, where these two British subjects have been imprisoned without charge for fourteen days and where the High Commissioner is still unable to find what charge is to be made or may be made against them, that the time has come for a public demand for their release?

The Prime Minister: I will do ail that I can, but I do honestly feel that this is the best method of approach in this particular case.

Mr. Mendelson: Is the Prime Minister aware that these people are held completely incommunicado? What would normally have happened is that a number of people who have written to Members of this House, including myself, might have got in touch with these two persons themselves and might have sent all the legal help which they were able to. None of this can now be done. Will he not seriously consider that that makes it absolutely imperative that he should act on behalf of all those who have written to Members of the House?

The Prime Minister: I continue to say that I will do all that I can, and I am quite sure that it is not our intention to let this matter drag. We shall try to bring it to a successful conclusion.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: We cannot debate this now.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have a short statement on business to make.
It is proposed to take the Opposition Motion relating to the Blue Streak missile on Wednesday, 27th April, until 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, we shall proceed with the Third Reading of the International Development Association Bill and the Report and Third Reading of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Bill, which it is hoped to obtain by 10 o'clock.
This rearrangement of business has been discussed through the usual channels.

RHODESIA AND NYASALAND AND MAURITIUS (MINISTER'S VISIT)

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): With permission, I wish to make a statement on my recent visit to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
As the House is aware, my main purpose was to see whether it was now possible to take up the process of constitutional advance in Nyasaland from the point where progress was unfortunately

interrupted by the emergency last year. But I also took the opportunity, in both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, to have full discussions on current problems with the authorities, and to meet representatives of all shades of political opinion. In Salisbury, I was able to make personal contacts with the Federal Prime Minister, and others, which were most useful and profitable.
In Northern Rhodesia, I thought it desirable to say again, in a public speech on 29th March, that Her Majesty's Govment had no plans in contemplation for constitutional change in that territory, although I could not predict that the outcome of the review of the Federal Constitution might not entail some consequential reconsideration of the territorial Constitution.
On the other hand, it was apparent that those who were pressing for rapid constitutional change were moved by the fear lest the African voice and case would go unheard at the Federal review. Accordingly, I repeated that it was wrong to assume that the delegations to the review conference would necessarily be drawn solely from the Legislative Council of the territory; and in the same speech I reaffirmed that Her Majesty's Government stood by the pledges in the Preamble to the Federal Constitution and would not abandon their responsisibilities to the peoples of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland unless and until all their peoples so desired.
In Nyasaland, I explored the possibilities of constitutional advance in talks which covered the widest possible range of political opinion. In addition to the official and unofficial members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, I met representatives of all the recognised political parties, community and commercial associations, the trade union movement, the different Churches, and the chiefs of all three Provinces. During my visit, the Governor found it possible to implement the decision, which had been taken in principle beforehand, to release Dr. Banda: and Dr. Banda was, therefore, able to lead the Malawi Congress deputation when it met me during the course of my programme.
In all these talks, I was, of course, concerned solely with the situation in Nyasaland itself, having regard both to the "lost year" of the emergency and to


the fact that the Monckton Commission is now at work and the Federal review is in front of us.
As a result of these discussions, I came to the conclusion that there was sufficient ground for calling together a constitutional conference in London during the summer, at which we might try to carry consideration of Nyasaland's constitutional position further forward. As I made plain, however, to the Press conference in Salisbury, on 8th April, at which I announced this decision, there are wide differences between the various viewpoints expressed to me in Nyasaland, and the outcome of the conference will depend very largely on the readiness of the different parties concerned to move towards one another from their present positions. I hope that all will come, as I certainly will, with a determination to make it succeed. I will announce the dates of the conference, which will probably be in July, as soon as possible.
Meantime, there has been a considerable relaxation of tension in Nyasaland. If good order is maintained, as I trust it will be, it will augur well for the conference and for the future.
I concluded my visit with a short stay in Mauritius, during which I was able to see the splendid first-aid recovery work which is being carried out to help the island to meet the effect of the two disastrous cyclones. I was much struck by the splendid morale of the Mauritius people, and was able to put in hand the beginnings of a long-term reconstruction programme, and also to give a message of sympathy and encouragement from the House of Commons.

Mr. Callaghan: In welcoming the Colonial Secretary back from his tour, which we think has been a fruitful one, may I ask him whether he will give us a little more information about what he saw in Mauritius, if not today, at any rate by means of a statement in HANSARD? I think that all of us in the House feel that it is very far away and that we have very little first-hand information through the Press about the devastation which has been suffered there. We would be grateful for such a statement.
Did not the Secretary of State find some disappointment in Northern Rhodesia at his inability to hold a

further constitutional review before the Federal Review itself? Although we understand, and have understood, that delegates for the Federal review would not necessarily be drawn from the Legislative Council, is it not the Governments who will have to reach conclusions and, therefore, how will the delegates who are not members of Governments be able to make their case felt in the discussions which are to be held?
Finally, on Nyasaland, is the Secretary of State aware, as I am sure that he is, that we welcome his decision to hold a constitutional conference in July? If he is to make a success of it, will he not have to release the detainees—140 of them—who are still held in detention without any charge being brought against them and have been so held now for over a year? While we support the right hon. Gentleman's decision to release Dr. Banda—indeed, we are not surprised, because we have become used to Ministers in this Government reversing the decisions of their predecessors—may we ask him if it is not the case that he really will have to secure, as a start of this conference, that there must be an acceptance of an African majority, at least in the Legislative Assembly?

Mr. Macleod: I will certainly find a way to let the House know the exact situation in Mauritius. I was deeply impressed by the work which had been done to help us by the Government there, and by many other Governments, too, and by all the voluntary agencies. I will find a way to let the House know, perhaps by a reply to a Written Question, the exact position as I saw it.
As regards the situation in Northern Rhodesia, it may be that some people were disappointed, although other people were pleased, by the first of the three statements I made. However, those who were disappointed with the first statement were pleased with the second and the third, and that, on the whole, is not too bad a batting average for a Secretary of State.
I recognise the difficulties of the position in Northern Rhodesia, but I think that it is a profound mistake to try to tear up constitutions which are little more, in this case, than a year old. In this case, it would be wrong to do that before we knew the result of the Federal review.
The reason why I regard the situation in Nyasaland as entirely different is that, if it had not been for the emergency, there would have been constitutional advance a year ago in Nyasaland, as a result of the talks that the Minister of State was to undertake when the emergency came upon it.
As for the release of detainees, as the hon. Member says, there are 142, or there were at the time of Dr. Banda's release—nearly all in Kanjedza, which I visited. I have agreed with the Governor that we should resume the programme of accelerated releases. There can be no question of bargaining in this matter. It is a matter of law and order, and can be judged only by that standard. But I am sure—although I cannot commit myself to exact figures —that the overwhelming majority of those still remaining in detention will have been released long before the conference starts in London. Only a handful will still remain in detention then.
As for the precise form that the conference should take, that is clearly a matter upon which I must reserve judgment. I know the points of view put to me, and I know, in particular, the importance that is attached to the question of the majority in the Legislative Council to which the hon. Member referred.

Mr. Sorensen: What was the nature of the agreement in principle that preceded the release of Dr. Banda and, by inference, the agreement in principle not to release the other detainees? What is the nature of the discrimination between him and the rest?

Mr. Macleod: There is no discrimination. As I have repeated to the point of monotony over the last eight months in the House of Commons, precisely the same conditions had to prevail in the case of Dr. Banda as in the case of anyone else, but since we were coming up to the time of the March review, and since the situation in Nyasaland, on the whole, was a good deal better than people thought it might have been, it was thought that it would then be reasonable for Dr. Banda to be released. His case was treated no differently from that of anyone else.
When I say that the decision was taken in principle beforehand, I mean that the decision that it would be on that particular date had been taken beforehand. I wished to be in Nyasaland at the time of that release, so that I could talk to Dr. Banda at once on the constitutional matters to which I have referred.

Mr. Grimond: Do we understand from the Minister's reply that, subject to a great deal of reservation which he has expressed, he expects most detainees to be free before July? If so, and if the situation is so much better in Nyasaland, surely we ought to press him strongly to see whether they can be released now. Can he say who may attend the conference? He did not deal with that point. In the case of Northern Rhodesia, do I take it that there is to be no discussion of any constitutional advance until after the Monckton Commission has reported?

Mr. Macleod: I have said that the accelerated release of detainees will be resumed; indeed, it will already have been resumed. It was resumed on the day after I left the territory, by agreement with the Governor. I cannot commit myself to precise numbers, but I have no doubt that very, very few detainees will still be in detention by the time July comes. The overwhelming majority of the 140 still in detention will have been released long before July.
On the question of the composition of the conference, to confine it to members of the Legislative Council alone would, for obvious reasons, be unsatisfactory in this case. We must bring in people from outside. I have in mind inviting between 15 and 20 people. That seemed to me to be a comfortable number. It will include representatives of the Malawi Congress Party, the United Federal Party and Members of the official and unofficial sides of the Legislative Council.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: In the interests of other hon. Members we must bring this discussion to an end.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Redmayne.]

HIGH COMMISSION TERRITORIES

12.15 p.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: We have just been hearing a statement on the situation in Nyasaland, which is critical for the whole of Central Africa. I want to draw the attention of the House to three territories whose situations are equally critical in relation to South Africa. These territories are the British Protectorates of Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland. Their geographical position makes their situation critical, as does the political situation.
One of them—Basutoland—is entirely surrounded by South African territory and the others are, in effect, enclaves of the Union of South Africa. It is inevitable, from their geographical position, that there are two alternatives for these Protectorates. They can either be assimilated into the apartheid system of the Union of South Africa, or they can influence South Africa towards the creation of an inter-racial human society. Which of those courses the Protectorates take will depend largely upon whether our policies are weak and appeasing to the principle of apartheid, or constructive and bold in the assertion of human equality.
These territories are also in a critical political relationship to the Union of South Africa. The Preamble to the South Africa Act gave the Privy Council power to transfer the Protectorates if the Parliament of the Union of South Africa made that request. It was only because of very strong opposition in this House that the Government gave an assurance that the British Parliament and the inhabitants of the Protectorates would be consulted before a decision to hand them over was made.
Recently, the Government of the Union have not hidden the fact that they are preparing to make the demand that the Protectorates should be transferred to them. I therefore ask the Minister of State to give us an assurance on the matter; this is the first request that I shall make of him. I want him to say not only that the inhabitants of the Protectorate will be consulted before there is any proposal to transfer them to the Union, but, also, that it will be necessary

for those inhabitants to give their consent. We have been warned of what could happen by the events in Central Africa, where we were content merely to consult the inhabitants. The great majority of the inhabitants were opposed to the European-dominated Federation, but we did not require their consent. It is because of that that the present difficulties in Central Africa have arisen. We desire to avoid them in the High Commission Territories.
If we are to pursue a policy which is to save the Protectorates from assimilation into the system of apartheid in the Union, there must be a considerable change in the historic policy of our Government towards them. I am not at this moment arguing from a party point of view. I can remember how, because we were ready to appease the Union of South Africa, even under a Labour Government Mr. Seretse Khama was expelled from Bechuanaland only because he had married a white woman. That is only one instance of the way in which we have appeased the Government of the Union in relation to the Protectorates.
There is now a common system of defence and that system, with the imposition in the Protectorates of much military equipment and technique, has been strongly opposed by the representatives of the people. I have drawn the attention of the House to how in Basutoland—

The Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he said "much military equipment and technique". I should like to know what information he has, because I am certainly not aware of anything to substantiate what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Brockway: I am thinking of the radar stations and all the arrangements which have been made by which the Protectorates can be used by the forces of the Union of South Africa both in Basutoland and Bechuanaland.
Not only in defence, but also in the economic field concessions have been made to the interests of the Union of South Africa. I have drawn attention in this House to the economic concessions of the mineral rights in the diamond industry in Basutoland to South


African interests and against which the organisations of the African people have strongly protested.
I am pleading today for a new policy in those Protectorates—a policy which will challenge the whole philosophy of apartheid and which will seek to make those Protectorates models of racial equality and of African advance, politically, educationally and economically. The hon. Gentleman should have received a good deal of encouragement from the way in which public opinion has reacted to recent events in the Union of South Africa. I am quite confident that the British people would support him if this new policy were pursued in the Protectorate.
I want to ask questions which have arisen from these events. A fortnight ago, I asked how many citizens of the Protectorates had been killed, injured or arrested during recent clashes in the Union of South Africa. I received a reply that inquiries were being made. I am very glad indeed that we now have information about the number of citizens of the United Kingdom who have been arrested. We have, so far, had no information at all about the citizens of these three British-protected territories. I say to the Minister that they are protected persons under our protection. It was just as urgent to obtain information about them as it was about citizens of the United Kingdom.
I urge the Minister to assert the independence of these territories from the Government of the Union in relation to those who are seeking asylum there. I ask him today four things, and I ask him to do them quite definitely. First, that he will grant asylum in the Protectorates for all refugees from the present Administration in the Union; secondly, that he will make provision for them. When people were cruelly crushed in Hungary we made the utmost provision for the refugees from those territories; we have a still greater responsibility in the case of a country which is within the Commonwealth. Thirdly, I ask him to facilitate their coming to this country. Fourthly, I ask that if any of them desire to go to the United Nations and give evidence there they should also have those facilities.
I want particularly to ask the Minister about the cases of Mr. Ronald Segal and

Mr. Oliver Tambo, which have frequently been raised in the House. If I may say so to the hon. Gentleman, his answers to questions yesterday on this matter were not at all clear. He said:
Both the latter are in the Bechuanaland Protectorate and there is no objection to them remaining there.
In a subsequent question which was put to him, he was asked:
… may we have an equally categorical assurance that such persons are free to leave and go to any other country they wish if they so desire?
This is the hon. Gentleman's reply, and I am asking him to clarify it because I cannot understand what it means. He said:
…as far as I know, there is no obstacle to anyone leaving the Protectorate that he is in provided that he is in possession of the requisite travel documents. Let me add to that. It is not, of course, necessary for them to be in possession of these documents simply for the process of leaving the Protectorate." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 1282–3.]
I confess that I do not understand.

Sir Leslie Plummer: Nor did the Minister.

Mr. Brockway: I am asking the Minister if he will make it perfectly clear that Mr. Robert Segal and Mr. Oliver Tambo can come to this country, and not only that they can come but that, as a Commonwealth Minister, he will enable them to have facilities to come. They would have to pass through Central Africa. He has some responsibility as Commonwealth Minister for these territories. Can he give us an assurance that they will be allowed to pass through the Central African Territories? If not, is he prepared to provide facilities by which they may reach this country in other ways, for example through the Belgian Congo and Ghana?
I urge that in seeking to make the Protectorates models of racial equality and African advance, we should end in those Protectorates the apartheid which has already penetrated to them. I give one example, again concerning Mr. Ronald Segal and Mr. Oliver Tambo. Oliver Tambo, because he is an African in Bechuanaland, a British Protectorate, is forbidden to stay with his friend, Ronald Segal, in the Lobatsi Hotel, because the colour bar is applied there.


It is for Europeans only. Oliver Tambo must live in a Government hostel reserved for Africans. We have segregation in our own British Protectorates. It is accepted by the Government. A separate hostel has to be provided for African persons. How can we possibly be sincere in denunciation of apartheid in the Union of South Africa if we permit it to be practised in our own Protectorates?
I want particularly to refer to segregation in education. I was shocked by the Minister's reply to my Questions on this matter the other day. We have segregation in education for the different races in all these three British Protectorates. In Bechuanaland, there are separate schools for European children and African children. In Swaziland, there are separate schools for European, Eurafrican—that is, children of mixed races—and for African children. In Bechuanaland, there are separate schools for European, coloured and African children.
I say to the Minister that the experience in Bechuanaland indicates that this segregation in the schools by race is entirely unnecessary. In his reply to me, the Minister said that in Bechuanaland half of the coloured children and some of the Indian children attend African schools. There is no difficulty at all in these coloured, Asian and African children being taught together. In addition, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that two coloured children attend a European school. I was aware of that. Those two coloured children are the children of my friends Seretse and Ruth Khama. If they can go to a European school, why should there be any restriction at all upon other African, Indian and coloured children attending those schools? I have just been to America and have seen the amazing change there in the de-segregation of the schools in the Southern States. Surely we ought not to be behind America in this matter. We ought to end the racial colour bar and segregation in all our schools.
The situation, however, is even worse than that. I also asked the Minister for the comparative costs of educating Europeans, coloureds and Africans. These are the extraordinary figures which he gave me in his reply to Questions which I put on 24th and 31st March as to the cost of education per year per

child: in Basutoland, the expenditure is £34 a year for a European child and £4 14s. for an African child; in Swaziland, it is £56 10s. for a European child, £15 10s. for a Eurafrican—a child of mixed race—and £5 4s. for an African child.
When the right hon. Gentleman gave that answer to me, I misheard him and I said that three times as much was being spent on each European child as was spent upon an African child. In fact, it is not three times as much; more than ten times as much is being spent on each European child's education as upon the education of an African child.
In Bechuanaland, it is even worse. The expenditure there per European child is £77, on the coloured child £12 5s., and on the African child only £6 3s. In these territories, which are African territories under our protection, we are not only applying segregation in education; we are spending £77 per year on the European child and only £6 3s. on the African child.
I want to give other Members an opportunity to speak, and, therefore, I am not going into details on education generally. However, I should like to point out that there are many African children, particularly in Bechuanaland and Swaziland, who have no opportunity even for primary education. The position about secondary education is appalling. In answer to my hon. Friend, the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson), on 14th March, the Minister said that in Basutoland, which is the best of the three territories, of 62,000 children between 15 and 19 years of age, only 2,800 are receiving education at secondary level.
I put it to the Minister that it will be impossible to build up these territories so that they become self-governing, so that the African people are able to take part in administration, unless secondary education is rapidly extended there. The Surridge Report last year shows that only 17 Africans in all these three territories are in the professional, administrative and educational sections of the public service in which Europeans serve.
Finally, on economics, I wish to emphasise the poverty of these people. It is a little humiliating to find that they


must go to the Union of South Africa to seek a livelihood. My figures are approximate, for it is difficult to obtain exact figures, but I believe that there are 10,000 Africans from Swaziland who have gone to the Union for a livelihood, 25,000 from Bechuanaland and 65,000 from Basutoland. This is partly because they have been agricultural territories, but now minerals are being discovered. Asbestos is to be found in Swaziland, diamonds in Basutoland, and copper, coal, gold and silver in Bechuanaland. I ask the Minister to determine that the conditions which exist in Johannesburg and the Union of South Africa generally shall not be repeated in those territories.
I admit that wages are comparatively high in the Union. They should be still higher in our own Protectorates. In the Union, an African is not allowed to do a skilled job. From the very first, in our own Protectorates, the Africans must be trained for skilled jobs. In the Union, Africans are not allowed any trade union for negotiating purposes. From the beginning we must have trade unions in the British Protectorates, with full negotiating rights. In the Union, there are shanty towns or the new towns miles away from the Africans' place of work. In the Protectorates, we must have good housing estates near the peoples' work, with schools and clinics. We must build a new civilisation. Otherwise, we are likely to repeat in those Protectorates the horrors of our own Industrial Revolution and the horrors which are associated with the mining industry in the Union of South Africa.
I have long taken the view that the most effective way in which we can influence the Union of South Africa to accept new policies, to end apartheid, would be to make our own Protectorates in Africa examples of racial equality and of the advance of the African people. I plead that that shall be done. Do those things, and the Protectorates will create the pattern of the future South Africa. Fail to do those things, and South Africa will determine the pattern of the Protectorates.

12.40 p.m.

Mr. John Stonehouse: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) on raising this subject and upon the way

in which he has, over the years, consistently worked for the improvement of conditions in the High Commission Territories. His case has gained a new urgency and significance as a result of the awful events taking place in the Union, which all of us in the House, without exception, deeply deplore.
We have had from the Minister of Justice in the Union, Mr. Erasmus, the statement that the Government there intend to send away all Africans who are surplus to their requirements. This will mean that many of the British-protected persons from the three High Commission Territories who have gone into the Union to seek employment will, during the next few months and years, be sent back to their home countries.
The numbers involved are very large indeed. From Bechuanaland, about 18,000 people a year go to the Union to seek employment. From Swaziland, about 8,000 people a year go, and from Basutoland, which, as my hon. Friend said, is completely surrounded by the Union, there are at the moment about 154,000 African men and women working in the Union of South Africa, about a quarter of the total population of Basutoland.
There will be a very severe strain on the economies of the three territories, particularly Basutoland, if those people are returned without preparations being made for them to be reabsorbed in their home territories. It is, therefore, very important indeed that economic development in the three territories should be accelerated. I very much regret that the Government have utterly failed to put into the three territories the amount of help, capital assistance and technical advice which is needed to build up their economies.
The figures speak for themselves. In Swaziland, during the last three years, a mere £3,600,000 has been made available in grants and loans for development of all sorts. In Bechuanaland, over the last three years, the figure has been £2,900,000. In Basutoland, the country which needs the help most because of its very large population, the amounts for technical assistance and grants during the last three years have been £200,000, £200,000 and £300,000 respectively, a total of a mere £700,000. This is a niggardly sum in the light of the great needs of Basutoland.
I ask the House to compare those figures with the figures in respect of Aden, with a smaller population. During the last three years, Aden has received in grants and loans and technical assistance £8,200,000. I am very glad indeed that that amount of money has been made available; the Aden Colony and Protectorate sorely needs such assistance. But I wonder whether assistance has gone to Aden in such comparatively large amounts because of the strategic position of the Aden Colony and the need to have a military base there for the United Kingdom and the West. If the strategic position of Basutoland had been of greater significance to the United Kingdom, perhaps the people there would have had more assistance than they have.
The grand total of assistance given to the three High Commission Territories during the last three years is £7,200,000. This is far too small. We hope that the Minister will be able to indicate today the Government's future plan for assisting the economic development of the territories. The amount which has been spent is equivalent to about one-sixth of 1 per cent. of our defence expenditure. That puts it into perspective and shows just how little regard we have had for our responsibilities towards these High Commission Territories. To give another comparison which is, perhaps, of more significance to the Minister, the amount which we have spent in the High Commission Territories during the last three years represents about one-tenth of what the Government have wasted on Blue Streak.
It is vastly important that economic development should take place. As my hon. Friend has said, there are potentialities. In Swaziland, the production of sugar can be developed and there are farming irrigation schemes which should be pressed forward. In Bechuanaland, the production of manganese and asbestos can be developed. In Basutoland, agriculture can be developed and, in addition, as has previously been suggested in the House, secondary industries should be set up such as, for instance, a blanket factory.
The amount spent in the territories on economic and agricultural developments is very small indeed. In Bechuanaland, the amount spent on agriculture yearly is

only £34,000. The veterinary services there have £228,000. These amounts are far too small compared with the great need for development.
Turning to the work of the Colonial Development Corporation, work which we all very much applaud, we find that in Swaziland £9 million of capital has been approved. In Bechuanaland, the figure is £3 million. In Basutoland, the territory which desperately needs this capital, the expenditure approved is nil.
I come now to the position of the High Commissioner, which is really very anomalous indeed. He is the United Kingdom representative in the Union of South Africa. Some people have been very greatly concerned about the way in which he has carried out his duties during the last two weeks. The Questions which have been asked day after day in the House are, indeed, a reflection on the way his duties have been performed. I do not wish to make any comment at all on that matter, but what I do say is that the High Commissioner in South Africa is likely to be very fully engaged with his diplomatic duties in relation to the Union of South Africa and it would be vastly in the interests of the High Commission Territories if another Commissioner or administrator could be appointed to be directly responsible for the three territories, the responsibilities which the High Commissioner in the Union now exercises towards them being removed from him.
One of the anomalies is that, according to the statement made by the Minister of State in the House yesterday, the High Commissioner is responsible for deciding who will be allowed admittance into the three High Commission Territories as political refugees. This is a very difficult matter for him, in view of the fact that he is also our High Commissioner in the Union. The only way to put emphasis on the political and, particularly, the economic development of the three High Commission Territories is to have a separate Commissioner who can devote all his energies to speeding up these important developments in the three territories.

12.50 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: My hon. Friends the Members for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) and Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) have


already traversed so much ground and asked so many questions that I realise that it may be a little difficult for the Minister of State, when he replies, to answer every question that has been put to him. I therefore want to speak as briefly as I can, but I am bound to add some other questions to those which my hon. Friends have asked. We rarely get an opportunity to talk about these High Commission Territories. If we cannot have all the answers orally today, perhaps we may have some of them later.
We want to show our very great interest in the present situation and the future prospects of these High Commission Territories. It is particularly important at present because of what is happening in South Africa, where, as my hon. Friends have reminded the House, very large numbers of the inhabitants of the High Commission Territories work. It is not an exaggeration to say that the High Commission Territories, or at least two of them, Bechuanaland and Basutoland, depend economically on the employment opportunities which their inhabitants get in the Union at present. Those employment opportunities are severely threatened.
In the Guardian of 13th April it was reported that statements have been made by the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice in South Africa portending a deliberate effort to restrict the amount of African labour used in the Union. Mr. Erasmus, the Minister of Justice said—and here I quote from the Guardian—that
South Africa's whole system of cheap black labour would have to be drastically revised….
The report states that he also said:
The need to send back thousands of 'superfluous Africans' and 'idlers' from the cities to African areas, where they would be kept under strict control
was necessary.
There is evidently a feeling on the part of the Government of the Union of South Africa that they want to become less dependent on black labour. Without going into the merits of that, we have to take account of it.
We must also realise that Africans normally working in South Africa who have other homes to go to may, in present circumstances, very much want

to go back to their own homes. They may feel that it is better to give up a job of work in the deplorable conditions that they have to work under in South Africa at present, with the pass law, discrimination and the general prevalence of a reign of terror, and go back home. If there is a movement of that kind, either because of the deliberate policy of the South African Government or the natural wish of these men to get back home, the situation in the High Commission Territories will obviously become very serious. We therefore want to know what preparation is being made to meet this sort of eventuality.
What needs to be done? First, obviously, the administration needs to be strengthened, because if anything of this kind happens the need for a strong administration is very great. There must be those there who are able to make suitable arrangements to ensure that people returning home in a condition of unemployment are properly looked after, and so on.
Above all, there is the need to build up the economy of these territories at a much more rapid rate than has been done hitherto, so that they can support a much larger population. I realise that it may be difficult to improve the economy of these territories to such an extent that they will be able to give employment to all the male labour which at present has to seek work elsewhere, but it is clear that we ought to be pressing ahead as hard as we can and as fast as practicable to build up the economy of these three territories. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us what is being done in that respect.
How far has there been a survey of the natural resources of the two territories, in particular, which are the poorest and worst off, Bechuanaland and Basutoland, from which the great majority of labour goes to the Union? We know something about the agricultural resources of both these territories. The main occupation of their people is agriculture. Apart from agriculture, has any survey been made of the other natural resources which might be available to develop industries like mining, and so on?
What steps are being taken to increase the cadre of African administrators within the territories? My hon. Friend the


Member for Eton and Slough has referred to the very small number of people who have been trained to take responsibility in their own country. What is being done to extend that sort of training? What is being done to press on with the conquest of public enemy No. 1 in the High Commission Territories, which evidently is soil erosion? To tackle the problem of soil erosion and to prevent this waste of the main natural resources of the territories requires not only the application of a great deal of skilled knowledge by persons coming in from outside who have dealt with similar problems elsewhere, but a great deal of education of the indigenous population.
Is it true that the agricultural demonstration service in Basutoland is very short of staff? What attention has been paid to the recommendation which, I understand, was made not long ago by Professor Lewis, and which may well have been made by many other people that a community development programme should be built up in these territories? Much has been done in building up community development programmes in other British territories overseas. For example, some years ago I came into contact with the excellent work being done by the University of Maryland, in British Guiana. Is anything of that kind being undertaken in these territories? If not, could not we once again enlist the help of American universities which have specialised, as a result of the experience of the Tennessee Valley Authority, in community development? There is a science of community development now. It leads not only to leading a better life in the community, but to enlisting the enthusiastic support and co-operation of local inhabitants in the task of improving agricultural productivity.
I can find very little information in the Estimates to enable me to know what are the answers to these questions. I observe that the grant-in-aid to Bechuanaland is to be increased this year over last year by 24 per cent.—from £650,000 to £800,000. A similar increase, but larger proportionately, I am glad to say, is provided for Basutoland. These are described as "Expenses of administration, etc." Can we derive from those few words the belief that the administration is to be considerably strengthened? They are not very large sums of money,

although the proportionate increases are great, which suggests an awareness of the problem which I have attempted to outline. What provision is to be made exactly? We should like to know, if possible.
When we look at the colonial development and welfare grants for these territories, Class 2, Vote 10, we find that expenditure in the High Commission Territories is lumped together with expenditure in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. That is about all that we are told. There is remarkably little explanation, except that, unfortunately, there is apparently a decline in expenditure on research schemes from £82,000 to £60,000. There is an increase from £1,225,000 to £1,657,000, an increase of £432,000, in the general vote for colonial development and welfare.
An increase of £432,000, if it were in the High Commission Territories, might be regarded as a substantial advance. We might say, "Could you not make it more, but at least you have done something." As, however, it is lumped in with the Vote for Rhodesia and Nyasaland, one cannot be sure whether this is so. Is this colonial development and welfare money which is included in that Estimate expenditure mainly upon the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland? I should like to know. I am all in favour of expenditure on the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, but what about expenditure on higher education in the High Commission Territories themselves?
We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough that although there is a substantial amount of primary education in Basutoland and about 60 per cent. of the children there are able to get to primary schools, there are severe bottlenecks later in the educational process. There are comparatively few secondary schools—there are only 1,400 children in secondary schools—and, as we know, these are recently established institutions. When we look at the reports of the experts who have been out there, we find that there is need for greatly improved teacher training until a satisfactory standard can be reached. To improve the secondary education by providing better-trained teachers, we need a university college.
The odd sort of fact about educational development in oversea underdeveloped territories is that the roof has to be put on before the rest of the building is built. One has to start with the higher education provision to produce a sufficient quantity of teachers and other technically-qualified people to administer and carry out the educational and other administrative services in the territories.
I want, therefore, to turn particularly to the one institution of higher learning which exists in High Commission Territories. It is quite clear that the inhabitants of the High Commission Territories are now to be cut off entirely from university education in South Africa. That is bound to be so, arising from the most regressive law which has been passed in the Union of South Africa about university education.
There exists one institution of higher learning in the High Commission Territories which will now have to cater for any inhabitants of those territories who might formerly have gone to Fort Hare College in South Africa, or any other university in South Africa and which will have to undertake the job if there is to be satisfactory education in those territories. There will never be satistory agricultural and other development unless there is satisfactory education, which will have to tackle the whole job of providing the leadership in these territories.
There is one college there, the University College of Pius XII, about which I asked a Question some time ago. It is true, as its name implies, that this institution was founded by one denomination, the Catholic Church, but it has 14 nationalities and six different religions represented in the membership of its faculty. Although, naturally enough— one cannot help feeling, rightly enough —it will preserve its religious character, having been founded in this way as a religious institution, as so many universities have been all over the world, it has given what, I am sure, the Minister would regard as entirely satisfactory undertakings that if it is to develop, it will not be a proselytising institution and that it will continue gladly to enrol teachers and students from all sorts of countries and different religious demoninations. It will not seek to bias its teaching in favour of the teaching of any

one denomination. The undertakings are reasonable and acceptable.
As the college has received notice that in March, 1961, it will be severed altogether from the association which it has had with the University of South Africa, we now have a special responsibility to see that it is encouraged, fostered and developed. It has not, of course, reached the highest academic standards—it does not deny this. Indeed, it is remarkable that founded, as it was, as a missionary enterprise and supported, as it has been, by voluntary funds, it has reached standards which are so high. They have received the highest praise from Professor Lewis on his visit of investigation. They may not yet be fully up to the standard which some of the university colleges elsewhere have achieved—that cannot very well be. That, however, is no reason for not aiding the college. On the contrary, it is the best possible reason for giving more aid.
At present, I understand, the college receives no aid from us or from our colonial development and welfare funds. It needs £50,000 a year to raise its standards, to improve its teaching, to develop its specialities in various directions which at present are imperfect and to recruit teachers at better rates of salary in order to attract people from outside. At present, its rates are very low.
I hope that there will not be any stuffiness about this or any suggestion, for example, that the college should reach higher standards before it can qualify for grant. In all the circumstances, it would be absurd to say anything of that kind. I hope that at an early stage it can be associated with a British university, not necessarily the University of London. The University of London is doing a great deal in the Colonial Territories in this way. Perhaps it could have special sponsorship from some other university, possibly from the University of Edinburgh, or even from the University of Wales. The University of Wales is a rather poor institution and might find it hard to tackle the task, but I am sure that it would be willing to do so.
It might also be considered whether an institution of this kind, with its special background, might not receive aid and assistance academically and even financially from a university in Canada,


where there is a large Catholic population and where a great deal of sympathy for this institution might be found. At least, I hope that we shall hear from the Minister this afternoon a rather more forthcoming reply about the needs of this college than we had when I asked him a Question.
I have rather concentrated on that issue because I did not want to traverse the ground any more. The questions which have been asked by my hon. Friends about the movement of persons who have taken refuge in High Commission Territories are extremely important, as are many of the other questions which they have asked, and I hope that I am leaving the Minister sufficient time to cover at least a good deal of the ground.

1.9 p.m.

The Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): I always welcome the occasions on which the House of Commons holds a debate on the problems of the High Commission Territories, because in the past the House has, perhaps, given them too little consideration. At the same time, however, too little consideration has been given to the success and progress which has attended the United Kingdom administration there during these last years. I am glad, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) took the opportunity of this Adjournment to raise this problem.
I am sorry, however, that he and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wednes-bury (Mr. Stonehouse) took the occasion to give what I think is a completely distorted picture of the situation in the Protectorates and of the progress which has been made. No doubt their words will give great satisfaction to our many critics, particularly in southern Africa, of the progress and achievement which our administration of the High Commission Territories represents. Certainly, in many cases they will not be any contribution to the progress of the territories themselves.
At the same time, I know that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough is one of the few Members of this House who has, over a long period, taken a close interest in the problems of these Protectorates, and, as I say, I always welcome that anybody should pay attention to these territories. He

asked me a large number of questions, and I will do my best to answer some of them; others must wait for further consideration and for further time and another opportunity.
The hon. Member asked me, first, what was our attitude to the question of the transfer of the High Commission Territories to the Union of South Africa, and he referred, I think I am right in saying, to the passages in the Act of 1910 which refer to this problem.

Mr. Brockway: To the Preamble.

Mr. Alport: To the Preamble. I would draw his attention and that of the House, as has been done on many previous occasions, to the exact wording of the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) in April, 1954. This is what he said:
There can be no question of Her Majesty's Government agreeing at the present time to the transfer of Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland to the Union of South Africa. We are pledged, since the South Africa Act of 1909, not to transfer these Territories until their inhabitants have been consulted, and until the United Kingdom Parliament has had an opportunity of expressing its views."— [Official Report, 13th April. 1954; Vol. 526. c. 966.]
The position as set out by Sir Anthony Eden and the present Prime Minister is a repetition of this statement and still represents the view of the Government at present.

Mr. Brockway: "Consult" not "consent "

Mr. Alport: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will restudy the statement, when he will see that the first of the sentences of that statement is very germane to his problem, but it is perfectly true that "consult" is the word used in the second sentence.
The hon. Gentleman asked also about the position of Mr. Tambo and Mr. Segal. I did my best to make clear the position in so far as the authorities in the High Commission are concerned, that is, the Government of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and that is that there is no impediment to their leaving the Protectorate. I cannot, however, be responsible for the position that may arise in the journey forward, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in


answer to a Question earlier today, made it quite clear that there was no impediment to their entry into the United Kingdom. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will study further the statement which I made yesterday—not necessarily the answer to the supplementary question, but the main statement I made, and I hope that that may be of some interest to him.

Mr. Brockway: Because of the shortness of the time available to the Minister I do not want to interrupt, but would he say, since he is Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations, whether he will seek to get the facilities for these two to pass through the Central African Territories?

Mr. Alport: The question of their moving into the Federation is a matter for the Government of the Federation, and that is not a matter which falls within the competence of my noble Friend the Secretary of State.

Mr. Stonehouse: Mr. Stonehouse rose—

Mr. Alport: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue? I have a relatively short period of time, and there will be complaints if I do not answer as many as possible of the questions that have been put to me.
Mention was made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wednesbury of the position of the High Commissioner. I should like to say to him that I hope that, on further thought, he will agree that his statement—any statement—that there is any reflection upon the activities of the High Commissioner in the Union of South Africa as a result of what has been said in this House, or, indeed, the evidence of his activities in the Union on our behalf and on behalf of all those people with whom he has been associated, is, in fact, completely unfounded. There is no reflection. The High Commissioner, during the course of these last few days and weeks, in circumstances of intense difficulty, has carried out his duties with immense skill, tact and effectiveness. I can only think that it is due to the ignorance of the hon. Member with regard to the position of the High Commissioner that he should suppose there was any reflection upon Sir John Maud.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Minister of State aware that it is precisely because the High Commissioner has so many serious problems to contend with in his duties in the Union of South Africa itself that we ask that another commissioner should be appointed purely to administer the High Commission Territories?

Mr. Alport: That is a different matter. I have answered twice in the last ten days, and it has been always the Answer right from the beginning, in regard to this situation, in which substantial burdens fall upon the shoulders of one individual, that we are satisfied, after having given this very great thought, that there is no alternative method of conducting first, our diplomatic relations with the Union Government and, at the same time, the historic responsibility for the government of the three territories.
There is no other way of carrying these out except as at present, through the services of a single individual centred in the Union of South Africa. We have given great thought to this particular problem over the last two years, and we have the advice of the High Commissioner upon this matter, and we are seeing how we can ease his burden to the best of our ability, but that does not mean that we consider that there is any alternative to continued combination of these two posts.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) and the hon. Member for Eton and Slough both referred to the possibility that there might be restrictions upon the movement of labour out of the High Commission Territories into the Union and that the prospects of employment of the inhabitants of the High Commission Territories might in future be gravely restricted.
I have seen newspaper reports of the statement of one of the Union Ministers, but I think that the House should remember that it is, I know, generally agreed that the quality of work of these Basuto working in the Union is outstanding; that, as we saw on the occasion of that recent most unfortunate tragedy in the mines at Coalbrook, a very large number of Basuto are employed in the South African mines; and that, indeed, they are regarded as being the best type of workers and the core of the South African mining industry's labour


Therefore, I do not think that, so far as Basutoland is concerned, about which the anxieties of the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member were the greatest, we need have too great fears that there will be any substantial restriction of the opportunities available for employment in the Union. In Swaziland itself, I think I am right in saying, there is also a deficiency of Swazi labour. A substantial number of Africans come over from Portuguese East Africa into Swaziland. I do not think that there will be a substantial problem there.
The movement of labour from the Bechuanaland Protectorate into the Union is to some degree marginal and to some degree related to the mobility of African life as a whole which takes people from their home territories to a distance, and has done for many generations, merely for the experience. I do not think that there is a strong economic need, certainly not as strong as it is in the case of Basutoland, for the movement of labour out of Bechuanaland into the Union. Therefore, I am not as anxious perhaps as the hon. Gentleman may feel that his first reactions to it should have made me about the possibility of these restrictions taking effect.
The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East once again asked me about economic surveys. I think that he is already familiar with the fact that an economic survey of the three High Commission Territories has recently been completed under a chairman nominated by the World Bank, Professor Chandler Morse, and I hope this will be published perhaps at the end of June or possibly in July. As I understand, it is a most comprehensive survey of the economic potential of these three territories, and we look forward to having the advice and, if I may say so, the support which an authoritative report like that invariably gives to the Administration.

Mr. James Callaghan: Will the House of Commons have a copy?

Mr. Alport: It will, of course, be available. It will be published both in South Africa and in the United Kingdom. I should be very glad—I know that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are extremely interested in this—to let them have copies when it is available.
This is an important juncture at which a report of this sort should be prepared, because I have no doubt that, quite apart from the relation of events in the Union of South Africa to the High Commission Territories, the High Commission Territories themselves, economically, are on the move. In the case of Swaziland there is no doubt that there is very considerable economic potential. We have seen, first, the development of the sugar industry there in which the C.D.C. has played a substantial and important part as well as private interests in the Big Bend area.
Secondly, there is the maturing of the important forests there, again a combination of enterprise both private and by the C.D.C. Anyone who has seen those great forests, the great stretches of land covered by the forest trees, must feel that in Swaziland there is a source of wealth which a few years ago was unforeseen. As the House knows, there has been a new agreement between Messrs. Courtaulds and the C.D.C. to establish a pulping factory in Swaziland to process the timber as it matures, which, again, will be a great advantage to Swaziland.
I have no doubt that with the prospective mineral resources of the territory and its agricultural potential—cattle, sugar and forestry—Swaziland's economic future, if not assured, is at any rate far better than it has ever been since our first contact with that territory.
I would merely say—I think that this was in the mind of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough—that the changes which are coming in Swaziland are changes which we must ensure do not disrupt and destroy the traditional patterns of life of the Swazi nation— we fully recognise our obligations to them—and we must make certain to the best of our ability that any changes that take place do so at a tempo and in a way which bring the greatest advantage to all the communities which are in that territory.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the increase in the number of African civil servants. We are deeply conscious —I know that my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary is also—of the importance of ensuring that Africans are made available to take part not only in


the government of these territories, but in the Administration, not only in the Parliaments as Members of Parliament or representatives but also as skilled, competent administrators in the Civil Service. I fully accept that the progress which we have made in the Protectorates in this respect is not as quick as we would like, but the problem which we are facing there is the problem which has been faced throughout Africa.
If one is to have skilled and competent civil servants one has to have a long background of education, and education in places where no education has previously existed must start at the primary stage. We have—the right hon. Gentleman has acknowledged it—done a good deal in primary education in all the Protectorates, particularly in Basutoland.
Secondary education has followed much more slowly, for many reasons which are not exclusive to the Protectorates and are not really connected with lack of money. Higher education has followed more slowly still. I fully accept the emphasis which the right hon. Gentleman places upon the importance, first, of providing an educated, trained and skilled Civil Service, and, secondly, of ensuring that there is in the High Commission Territories an institution which is capable of providing them with the necessary education and training.
Therefore, I accept the importance which the right hon. Gentleman attaches to Roma. In his speech he set out very fairly I thought, some of the problems which are associated with this. There are problems because of its denominational nature, and we should not boggle at that fact. I believe that, with tolerance and broadmindedness on all sides and in the light of the fact that this institution has already made great progress having regard to its recent start and the difficulties which it has faced, we can help. I fully accept the obligation that we have of ensuring that the opportunity which it provides for those in the High Commission Territories should not be lost but should, indeed, be fostered and strengthened by every means in our power.
The right hon. Gentleman also asked me about the strengthening of the Civil Service. I fully accept the importance

of strengthening the Civil Service not only with regard to its African content, but from the technical and expatriate points of view, because, in the long run, it is most important that these territories should have skilled and expert administrations at this present difficult and trying time. One of the objects of the grants in aid to the Bechuanaland Protectorate, as, indeed, of the expanding grant-in-aid, as I hope and believe it will be, to Basutoland, is to ensure that they have the administrative apparatus which they must have particularly in Basutoland, if I may say so, at this moment when we are engaged there in one of the most promising and, I believe, one of the most interesting political experiments in the whole of Africa.
Although I realise that I have not answered all the questions put to me— I hope that the House will understand that it is difficult to do so in the time at my disposal—I would end on this note. Within the last few weeks, quite apart from the economic problems and quite distinct from the social problems which are involved in Africa, we have seen in the political field in Basutoland, with the inauguration on Moshesh day, 12th March, of the new Basutoland National Council, the beginning of a new experiment in political advance in Africa which, I believe—this is a point which the hon. Member for Eton and Slough made—may be an example not only for us, but for others who are wrestling with this great and difficult problem of finding a means of bringing political progress along democratic lines to the African peoples.
Simultaneously with the inauguration of this new Legislature with special powers for the Basuto nation there has been the presentation to the people by the High Commissioner of a new and young Paramount Chief. While I pay tribute to the work over seventeen years of the previous Paramount Chief Regent, I would like to feel that the House, on this occasion, when it is considering the problems of the territories, would send to the Basuto people and to Constantine Bereng, the young Paramount Chief, its good wishes for the political progress which we believe the new Constitution represents, and for the Paramount Chiefs successful service to his people in the years to come.

RHEUMATISM, WESTERN SCOTLAND (TREATMENT AND RESEARCH)

1.30 p.m.

Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North): I bring to the notice of the House the fact that neither the Secretary of State for Scotland nor the Joint Under-Secretary of State who is responsible for health is present for this important Adjournment debate.
The matter which I propose to raise is of the utmost importance to the health of more than half the population of Scotland. During the Crichel Down debate, the present Lord Chancellor, who was then Secretary of State for the Home Department, had this to say:
The Minister is not bound to defend action of which he did not know, or of which is disapproves. But, of course, he remains constitutionally responsible to Parliament for the fact that something has gone wrong, and he alone can tell Parliament what has occurred and render an account of his stewardship." —[Official Report, 20th July, 1954; Vol. 530, c. 1286.]
I hope to show today that something has gone seriously wrong in the West of Scotland, and I think that it is disgraceful that the Minister responsible is not here to answer for his stewardship. On 4th May, 1953, in answer to a Question, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), who was then Prime Minister, said:
All members of the Government are, of course, aware of their responsibilities both to Parliament and to their Departments. It is certainly customary for Ministers to give precedence to their Parliamentary business." —[Official Report, 4th May, 1953; Vol. 515. c. 29.]
Thas is exactly what the Ministers responsible for this subject are not doing today. This is analogous to the case of an English or Welsh Member raising a similar subject on the Adjournment, and the Minister of Health and his Parliamentary Secretary saying, "We have a great many other engagements today", and asking the Minister of Agriculture if he or his Parliamentary Secretary would answer for them.
That is exactly what is happening here now, because the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is to reply, is really the Minister of Agriculture for Scotland and cannot possibly have the background to reply to a debate of this

nature. Indeed, it might have been wiser for the civil servants of the Department of Health for Scotland to put the reply on a tape recorder and play it back on the Dispatch Box, or, if they had had the time, perhaps to have trained a parrot to give the reply.
I am not castigating the hon. Gentleman who is to reply, for this is not his responsibility. All he will be able to do is to read from a brief and give no answer at all to the debate. It is a grave discourtesy to the House. I will go so far as to say that it is a contempt of the House. It shows scandalous complacency and a "could not care less" attitude on the part of the Secretary of State and the Joint Under-Secretary of State who is responsible for health matters.
I am sorry that I have had to use some of my valuable time on this matter, but I felt that it was important for Scotland that this ought to be shown up. I want now to raise the urgent need for the provision of facilities for the assessment and treatment of rheumatic diseases and for research into these diseases, for the area in Scotland covered by the Western Regional Hospital Board.
I have already stated that this covers more than half the population of Scotland. The lack of such facilities was drawn to my attention in the first instance by a doctor in my own constituency. I wrote a long letter to the Secretary of State, and six weeks later received a reply. In the intervening period I put down three Questions to him. So far, I have had no satisfaction at all. In his letter the Secretary of State used these words:
It is up to the regional boards to plan the hospital services in their area and to assess the relative priorities of various proposals for the improvement of the services. Since they have been appointed by the Secretary of State for that purpose, the central Department is not normally involved in detailed consideration of any but the largest projects.
In his final paragraph, the Secretary of State said:
In the light of what I have said earlier, I see no reason for intervening, though you may take it that I and the officers of my Department will take a close interest in future developments.
I shall refer to other parts of the letter later.
The whole reply illustrates crass complacency on the part of the Scottish Ministers. The Secretary of State, if he does not know it, is the Minister of Health for Scotland, and the good health of our people is his responsibility. He has not the right to try and shuffle off that responsibility on to the shoulders of any regional hospital board in Scotland.
I have been trying to carry out some research myself in this matter. The first document to which I went was the latest Report of the Department of Health for Scotland. I found in it nothing about rheumatism. Not even was the word mentioned. It was treated as though rheumatism just did not exist in Scotland. I then went to the latest Report of the Minister of Health and there I found that seven pages were devoted to the subject of rheumatism.
That shows the attitude of the Minister of Health, as compared with that of the Secretary of State, to this disease that is so prevalent, particularly in the West of Scotland. I also studied the latest Report of the Registrar-General for Scotland. I found in that Report that the area covered by the Western Regional Hospital Board had three times the number of deaths from chronic rheumatic heart disease than the area covered by the Eastern Regional Hospital Board.
Now, the Joint Under-Secretary of State who is to reply may point out that far more people come under the Western Regional Hospital Board than under the Eastern Regional Board. That is true, but in the Eastern Region, in Edinburgh, there is a first-rate unit to deal with this matter.
We find in the Report that in the area covered by the Western Regional Board there were two and a half times the number of deaths from other forms of rheumatism and arthritis than in the area covered by the Eastern Regional Board. Again, according to this Report, in 1956 there were 217 deaths in Glasgow from chronic rheumatic heart disease as compared with 61 in Edinburgh. In Glasgow, there were 55 deaths from other forms of rheumatism, as against 23 in Edinburgh.
The statistics of the World Health Organisation's Technical Report—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) has given a great deal of study, and with

which he will deal later—shows that, of 20 countries listed, Scotland has the highest percentage of deaths due to cardio-vascular diseases, of which almost half were due to rheumatic fever or chronic rheumatic disease. Does not that worry the Secretary of State, or does he just not know that that is what is happening in Scotland?
The latest Report of the Ministry of Pensions and National Service, published in 1958, shows that the number of days for which benefits was paid, over the whole of the United Kingdom, to people absent from work because of some form of rheumatic illness was 22,177,000. Hon. Members can imagine the suffering which those figures reveal. Would it not have been better for the Government to have used some of their resources—when they tell us that we have never had it so good —for research into and treatment of rheumatism?
Rheumatism may not be one of the greatest killer diseases, but it certainly causes dreadful suffering and pain to many thousands of people in Scotland. I suggest that it is a contributory cause of other deaths which are not listed as death from rheumatism. Indeed, it is conservatively estimated that one out of 200 of the population suffers some form of rheumatism.
The reply to my Question to the Minister on 8th March showed that in the whole of the area covered by the Western Regional Hospital Board there were only 30 beds devoted specifically to the treatment of rheumatism—30 out of hundreds of beds in the area. In the Minister's reply on 1st March we were told that research into the disease was going on at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, although no details were given. On 8th March, I put another Question and I was told that a research unit established by the Medical Research Council undertook research into certain aspects of the disease.
The first Answer which I got from the Secretary of State was misleading and the Answer I got on 8th March from the Joint Under-Secretary was not much better and would have given anyone who did not care to do research on his own the impression that there were research facilities in the West of Scotland in connection with this disease.
What are the facts about this research unit in the Western Infirmary? I am


informed that it is a chemotherapy unit staffed largely by doctors with scholarships from the Medical Research Council. It is almost a coincidence that since its inception the work of that unit has been research into the effect of drugs used in the treatment of acute rheumatism. That is an important subject, but it leaves the wide range of arthritis and chronic rheumatic diseases with not a vestige of research undertaken in the West of Scotland. I understand that not even those in charge of the unit in the Western Infirmary would dream of claiming that it was sufficient for research into arthritis and chronic rheumatic diseases.
I want again to quote from the letter which I mentioned earlier. Referring to the question of research facilities, the Secretary of State said:
It is true that this matter had been discussed in various quarters since, I understand, 1957".
He went on to say:
In this case, I am informed that the Regional Board had no specific proposal from the Board of Management of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary until March, 1959".
As early as April, 1957, the Western Regional Hospital Board was made aware that facilities available at that time would be disappearing from hospitals under the control of the Royal Infirmary —I do not want to go into details which can easily be found if required. From 1957, nothing was done to ensure that there would subsequently be adequate facilities. It was only when it was evident that the Western Regional Hospital Board was not prepared to initiate proposals on this matter that the Royal Infirmary, which, in 1957, had informed the Board of what was to happen, put forward its proposals.
It is no use the Secretary of State or the Western Regional Hospital Board hiding behind the fact that it was not until 1959 that specific proposals were made. The Board knew as early as 1957 that the then facilities, inadequate though they were, would be disappearing in two years, but during those two years the Board did nothing. The Board approved in principle the proposal put forward in July, 1959. If it approved it in principle, why am I now having to quote this letter from the Secretary of State saying that the Board has had second

thoughts about the proposal? There is no time for delay in this matter.
The proposed unit at Belvidere Hospital would have provided 30 beds—I am reliably informed—and not the 20 beds mentioned in the letter. It would have been a unit which would have provided for a very large outpatient consultation and for research. One of the great advantages of the proposals made by the Royal Infirmary is that Belvidere is a fever hospital built on the pavilion principle. Infectious diseases are rapidly decreasing—and we are all very glad of that. If the pavilion type hospital in Belvidere had been used, then, if expansion were needed, another pavilion could have been taken over for the purpose. It would have been just a matter of duplication.
I know that there is a shortage of funds and that every regional hospital board is experiencing the parsimony of a Tory Government, but since there is a shortage of funds it is all the more important that money should be spent wisely. The Western Regional Hospital Board spent £90,000 on a unit for poliomyelitis. That unit has since treated only a handful of people. It should have been known to the Board that experiments with Salk vaccine were taking place in the United States of America, for the Board would then have known that there was no need to spend that £90,000.
We will now be left with a monument to a disease which all of us hope will disappear. It would have been much wiser for that money to have been used for research into the treatment of rheumatism. Are we to leave 200 to 300 beds in Belvidere Hospital for an epidemic which is almost certain never to occur? If, by some mischance, it did occur, there is nothing to prevent chronic rheumatic patients being sent home. This is a very foolish attitude about available premises.
The Rheumatic Research Unit in Edinburgh has done excellent work and the Empire Research Council in Rheumatism has now given it £600 a year for research into the incidence of rheumatic diseases, with particular reference to industry. If we had had a unit in the West of Scotland, we would have had at least a share of that money. As it is, either the heavy engineering and shipbuilding industries will be neglected


in this research, or we shall witness the spectacle of a unit from the East of Scotland having to go to the West of Scotland to do a job for which we ought to have facilities.
The Secretary of State tells us that we ought to be careful. He says, moreover, that in planning research projects we should be careful that there is no duplication with work being done elsewhere. No consultant would dream of duplicating the work of another unit. The last thing that a consultant or those interested would want would be to make in Glasgow a mirror image of the unit in Edinburgh or in Manchester.
I have hurried through this, because some of my hon. Friends from the West of Scotland have done a lot of work on this subject.
On 1st March, I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer which universities in Scotland had a Department of Rheumatology. His Answer was that not a single Scottish university had such a department. Not one university, although the incidence of the disease is so high. I then raised this matter with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in relation to England. What a different picture I found. Manchester University has a centre for the study of chronic rheumatism, with a chair financed by the Empire Rheumatism Council. If one considers the population of Glasgow and the conditions which lead to rheumatism, and compares the situation there with what one finds in Manchester, the Secretary of State should be thoughly ashamed that we are so far behind. What is he doing to try to interest Glasgow University to do what Manchester University has already achieved?
Let us consider another example. The Post-graduate Medical School of London University has a professorship—not just a department—of rheumatology in the Department of Medicine. Sheffield University, which is smaller than Glasgow University, has a lecturer in rheumatic diseases. Leeds University has two research fellowships in rheumatic studies.
That is the picture in England. What a bright picture it is compared with Scotland. But it is not surprising that the Scottish universities should be failing us. They receive no leadership from the Secretary of State for Scotland, who is

the responsible Minister of Health for Scotland. I hope that if this Adjournment debate does nothing else it will make the Western Regional Hospital Board realise that its job is to get a move on and use Belvidere to provide a much-needed service for the people who are suffering so badly from this disease in Scotland.

1.53 p.m.

Mr. A. C. Manuel: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) on her initiative in making this debate possible. It is unfortunate that we have only 45 minutes in which to discuss this subject. Obviously, we cannot do justice to it, but I endorse all that my hon. Friend said about the need for more research into rheumatism in Scotland. It is scandalous that with the incidence of rheumatism as high as it is we have far fewer facilities in Scotland than are provided in the rest of the United Kingdom.
I do not wish to criticise the medical profession, but this disease still largely baffles the doctors. That being so, the need for research is paramount. If we are to arrest the damaging effects of this disease we must so arrange our facilities for providing treatment that treatment is provided in the early stages of the disease.
As I understand, certain local authorities in Britain have been listed by the Minister of Health, by regulation, where notification and treatment must take place. This notification, however, refers only to cases of acute rheumatism in the case of children under 16 years of age. It is remarkable that this listing by regulation started only in 1947, although there have been further extensions in 1953 and 1959. I have not the time to list the areas, but there are 14 local authority areas in England which are listed for this compulsory notification and treatment. We have no comparable regulations for any part of Scotland. We are completely apart in this respect, and the areas which we represent, and which are in most need of help and hospital facilities, have nothing comparable to England and Wales in connection with notification and treatment of rheumatism.
I understand that the incidence of this disease has been much lessened in recent years among young children. After


reading Sir John Conybeare's "Textbook of Medicine", where he tells us that overcrowding and poverty are probably the most important factors in causing this disease, we can understand that good housing and full employment have reduced the incidence of rheumatism. I am appalled at the amount of productive time that is lost to industry and to workers in industry because of the ravages of this disease.
We have now reached a stage where compulsory notification should apply to the whole country in respect of young people. In addition, all our local authorities—and I want this to apply in particular to Scotland—ought now to be empowered to provide clinical and hospital treatment, and adequate facilities, as are provided for infectious diseases, tuberculosis, maternity cases, and the host of other services provided by the local health authorities. I am convinced that in Scotland the need is greater than in any other part of Britain.
Our climatic conditions and the dampness with which we have to cope lead to a high incidence of this disease. In Scotland, we lose far more man-hours than any other comparable area of the country. While we have compulsion up to the age of 16 in certain areas in England, we must not for a moment forget the many thousands of people in Scotland who are older, and who are subjected to damp and wet conditions because of the nature of their job and who attract rheumatism after that age. We must provide facilities for treatment to give those people some hope of being cured.
Other hon. Members wish to speak and perhaps I should not have spoken at all, because of the short time at my disposal, but it is commonplace in Scotland to find old people on the street crippled by this disease, and to many of us that is a heart-rending situation. Scotland is lagging behind England in the treatment of this disease. Our need is very great and I hope that this short debate will spotlight attention on our need. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland will talk to the other members of the Government who are responsible for Scottish health matters and make an authoritative statement, in view of what we have said about local authorities and other things, in connection with

research and the need for action in Scotland to deal with this dread disease.

2.0 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: I am sure that the House will understand that in the time available one cannot develop all that one would like to say. I think that two or three of my hon. Friends wish to speak after me, and I will, therefore, only briefly support what my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) said about this important subject.
One aspect has not been mentioned, which is that rheumatism and arthritis take second place only to bronchitis as the illnesses mainly responsible for the absence from work of many industrial workers. I accept that research is being undertaken into the common cold and influenza. Of the rather more serious illnesses, rheumatism takes second place only to bronchitis, and it would repay many hon. Members, when they make attacks on the workers for absenteeism and strikes, to remember that if we could save the days lost by illness generally, and by this disease in particular, it would go a long way to helping us to pay our way better than we are doing at present.
It should also be remembered that a quarter of those attacked by rheumatic fever at some time, particularly younger people, have a return of the disease within five years. That is something to which the Secretary of State, and the Western Region Hospital Board—which covers, as has been said, half the population of Scotland—must pay increasing attention in the future. From current correspondence it appears that there is a strong analogy between what is needed in this case and what was wanted in dealing with cancer in the West of Scotland, when the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, as a matter of urgency, had to kick some people into action to produce the necessary facilities. The very same conditions apply here.
Rheumatism can be substantially prevented by continued administration of penicillin and the sulphonamides, and this long-term treatment was strongly recommended by the Rheumatic Fever Committee of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1957. As we are now in 1960, some of us would like to know what attention the Secretary of State has


paid to the recommendations of that committee. I could quote figures, did time permit, to show that the incidence of arthritis and rheumatics is taking precedence even over that of respiratory tuberculosis, particularly so in men. Surprisingly enough, there is a greater disparity in the case of women.
I am sorry not to have had more time to underline many of the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Lanarkshire, North and Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel). Why have no areas been designated in Scotland? Why is there no compulsory notification of the disease, particularly for children under 16 years of age? There are areas listed for England and Wales, and an amending Order was made as late as 1959. We want to know what the Department's intentions are.
As some reference has been made to the reports of the World Health Organisation, I would refer the Joint Undersecretary to page 5 of its second report, which gives a table showing deaths from cardio-vascular diseases in persons under 35 years of age, belonging to 20 different nations. Norway leads, with a proportion of deaths from cardio-vascular disease in relation to all deaths of only 1·9 per cent.
Denmark comes next with 2·2 per cent. The figures range upwards through a number of countries to the three countries of the British Isles. In England and Wales it is 5·6 per cent. Northern Ireland has 6·1 per cent. Scotland comes tailing along with 6·4 per cent. Half of these deaths are due to rheumatic fever or chronic rheumatic heart disease.
The House would do better to get down to such fundamental problems rather than to spend so much time on matters that are not so important for the future well-being of the nation.

2.5 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gilmour Leburn): I am sorry if the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) feels some slight by reason of the fact that I should be answering the debate—

Miss Herbison: I am not slighted.

Mr. Leburn: I am grateful to her for the fact that she makes no personal attack upon myself. I do not think that

I should take up time discussing the matter—time being so short—but I think that notice will be taken of her remarks.
I am aware of the very close interest which the hon. Lady has taken in recent months in the arrangements for the treatment of and research into rheumatism in the West of Scotland. As she said, she has addressed three questions on the subject to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and has also written to him.
In view of her concern, my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary wrote to her at some length on 23rd March explaining the latest position in detail, and this debate this afternoon has given me a further opportunity of dealing with this matter. We should all be grateful to the hon. Lady for the publicity that she has given to this important topic.
The hon. Lady's speech has shown that she considers some further action should be taken by my right hon. Friend and his Department. In view of this, we must, I think, first of all get in proper perspective the responsibilities of hospital boards and their relationship with my right hon. Friend.
The Secretary of State appoints regional hospital boards to act as his agents in the planning and organisation of the hospital service in the five regions of Scotland. It is for them to decide, within the framework of the Secretary of State's broad policy, what priority should be attached to the various proposals for improvement in the service.
The Secretary of State appoints to these boards people of standing, both in the medical world and laymen and women, able to speak for a wide variety of interests. Having appointed them, it would be quite wrong—and I feel sure that, in principle, the hon. Lady would not disagree—if the Secretary of State were constantly telling them how to run the service in their regions, and interfering in their consideration of each and every project for development.
While the final responsibility for their actions—and, perhaps, even omissions— is the Secretary of State's, he must leave them a reasonably wide area of discretion in planning the regional service along with boards of management in their local knowledge of local needs.
Having said that, I must make it clear that my right hon. Friend and his Department are very much concerned about the suffering and incapacity resulting from this disease. We all sympathise with the many people whose lives are lived under the constant shadow of pain or disability; and we are all concerned to see that proper measures are taken to help them.
We in the Scottish Office are also aware of the effect of chronic rheumatism and arthritis upon our economic life. I have figures but, because of the time, I shall not quote them, to illustrate the number of days lost, and the number of fresh cases of rheumatism in Scotland each year. They have been quoted so I shall not repeat them.
I may say, first that this disease in its ordinary chronic forms is a crippling disease rather than a killing one. Rheumatic heart disease and rheumatic fever have traditionally been regarded as more dangerous forms of the disease. The Reports of the Registrar General, however, I am glad to say, show a welcome fall in deaths from these forms of the disease in recent years. The number of deaths from rheumatic fever fell from 57 in 1950 to 17 in 1958—a result which is a great tribute to medical skill and care.
Before I deal with the particular point raised by the hon. Lady and with the Western Regional Board's present activities in this field of rheumatism, perhaps I might say a general word about research into rheumatism in Scotland. Facilities far investigations of various kinds in this connection have existed for some time. If the hon. Lady cares to study another report of the Department of Health, the one published in 1954, she will find reference to the establishment by the Medical Research Council in that year of two units concerned with research into rheumatism. Of course, she has, in fact, mentioned them.
One was the establishment of a clinical chemotherapy unit at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, to investigate the treatment of acute rheumatism and certain blood diseases. Research is still taking place in this unit, which has its own staff of doctors and research workers. It has 14 beds and laboratory and associated facilities.
The other unit, as the hon. Lady mentioned, was the one established at the Northern General Hospital, Edinburgh, through the generosity of the Nuffield Foundation. This unit concentrates entirely on rheumatic conditions and has comprehensive treatment facilities both for in-patients and out-patients. It carries out an extensive programme of research and is financed partly by the Secretary of State and partly by the Medical Research Council.
The House will, I think, be interested to know that it has recently been arranged that Dr. J. J. R. Duthie, head of this unit, who, incidentally, is also a university lecturer, is to direct a survey financed by the Empire Rheumatism Council into the incidence of rheumatic conditions among the working population.
In spite of all this, there is, of course, always room for more research into the various aspects of rheumatism. But it does not follow that it would be right —and I am sure that the hon. Lady realises this; in fact, she has really said so—merely to reproduce the Edinburgh unit somewhere in the West of Scotland. In fact, provision for research, unlike treatment, does not necessarily require additional building; sometimes all that may be required are interested and suitably qualified people to carry out the investigations.
I should like to say as firmly as I can that no doctor with a soundly planned programme of investigation or research—

Miss Herbison: Surely, if the units are to carry out any investigation they have got to have even a small number of beds at their disposal.

Mr. Leburn: That may be so, but, on the other hand, they can get the equipment and the finance from a number of various sources, into which I do not think I need go. In the last resort, they can, if necessary, get help from the Scottish Office or from the Department of Health itself. If any interested person wanting to do this sort of thing needs medical and scientific advice in the preparation of his programme we have an advisory committee on medical research to help him.
In speaking of research, I have gone beyond the Western Region, because research, unlike treatment, is not


specifically devoted to the needs of any one region. The patients in one region benefit from the results of research in another, though they have, of course, to have treatment facilities of their own. On that point, I have no doubt that patients in Scotland greatly benefit from the research that is done in England, at Manchester, London, Sheffield and in the other centres.
May I now turn to provision for treatment in the Western Region? While it is valuable to have some units which specialise in the treatment of rheumatism, it is wrong to assume that adequate in-patient treatment can be provided only in beds specially set aside for that purpose. Like other medical conditions, it can be treated in medical wards of general hospitals.
In the Western Region, as in others, patients are accommodated in the medical wards of hospitals throughout the region. But, in addition, in Killearn Hospital, associated with the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, there are 30 beds specifically devoted to the treatment of rheumatism. There are also the beds in the research unit at the Western Infirmary itself which may be occupied from time to time by rheumatism patients.
The hon. Lady has expressed her concern about delay in providing a further special unit at Belvidere Hospital in Glasgow, and I should now like to make quite clear the position of my right hon. Friend and the regional board in relation to this proposal. The first point to emphasise is that, while officers of the Department of Health have known that this matter was being discussed, no proposal has, in fact, been made to the Department of Health.
Many projects do not come formally to the Department at all since they can be carried through within the regional board's delegated authority.

Mr. Manuel: The local authority, not the regional hospital board.

Mr. Leburn: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish.
When the large projects come to the Department it is often only after a long period of consideration at regional and board of management level—perhaps involving radical reshaping before they reach the Depart-

ment. In view of the hon. Lady's interest in this proposal, the Department has, however, asked the regional board for a report on the whole matter. The information which I shall now give the House is based on information obtained from the board.
I understand that a proposal for some kind of rheumatic unit at Belvidere Hospital has been discussed in various quarters since 1957. The Empire Rheumatism Council has, I know, been interested in the proposal and has been involved in the discussions. As I have indicated, there are often fairly long, sometimes disappointingly long, periods of preliminary discussion of new projects.
In this case, I am informed that the regional board, although it had been involved in these discussions, had no specific proposal from the board of management of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary group, which includes Belvidere Hospital, until March, 1959.

Miss Herbison: Though it knew the need and had had the discussions, supposing that the Royal Infirmary had never at any time put forward specific proposals, would nothing have been done by the regional board? That is really what we are being told.

Mr. Leburn: Treatment of this disease is being given in very many hospitals. We are now coming back simply to the question of specialised beds.
This was for the provision of 20 beds at Belvidere for the treatment of rheumatic patients. The regional board approved this proposal in principle in July, 1959, and sketch plans were thereafter provided by the board of management in October. After this, I understand, the regional board decided to give some further consideration to the whole conception of this unit, in particular to its size, the facilities it should offer and the area it should serve.
Last month the regional board decided that instead of merely providing some additional beds at Belvidere it should examine the desirability of having a much more comprehensive regional centre for the treatment of rheumatism —not necessarily at Belvidere, where there are many demands for other types of accommodation. I will draw particular attention to what the hon. Lady has said about this hospital.
I would point out that a special subcommittee was set up and the senior administrative medical officer was asked to make inquiries about the size and function of comparable units in other parts of the country to see what kind of provision might be appropriate to the circumstances of the Glasgow area. To the extent that some aspects of the unit might be experimental, it would be necessary to avoid duplication of work going on elsewhere. I understand that the senior administrative medical officer has already been in consultation with the director of the Edinburgh unit and that the sub-committee is to meet on 28th April to consider the results of his inquiries.
I am bound to say that in view of these developments my right hon. Friend can see no reason for intervening further at this stage. The hon. Lady may take it, however, that he will keep in touch with developments and will be eager to see that a firm decision of some kind is come to on this matter in the very near future.

UNITED KINGDOM AND COMMON MARKET

2.19 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: Ever since the Coal and Steel Community was first suggested, the Liberal Party has urged successive Governments, both Labour and Tory, to wake up to what was happening in Europe. It is now more and more widely agreed that we were right.
We suggested that the Government had miscalculated the forces behind the Treaty of Rome. We urged them to go in and take the place which this country could claim, as a leading European Power. But Governments proved unworthy of the opportunities offered to them. They chose to magnify the difficulties of associaton with the Messina Powers. They seemed sometimes even to pretend that the European movement did not exist. It is becoming more and more obvious that they gravely miscalculated events.
The Common Market is a reality. Many of the fears about it have proved illusory. Its members are not being rushed into a fully-fledged federation.

Its field of action is economic, but of course to harmonise economic policies one must accept some political decisions. I think that while there remains a very wide field in which national tradition and Government must hold sway, national sovereignty is visibly breaking down in certain spheres and in economics and defence this breakdown should be encouraged.
Nor is it true that our Commonwealth obligations justify us cutting ourselves off from Europe. The Commonwealth wants two things—trade and capital. It is important for the Commonwealth not to be cut off from the most rapidly expanding market in the world. There are 170 million people in the countries of the Six. Further, the Six have devised a joint approach to supply capital for colonial territories. Britain, by herself, cannot supply capital for all her dependencies. Western Germany is making £70 million available to the colonial territories of the Six, most of which will, in fact, go to those of France.
Surely it is desirable that Britain and her Commonwealth should share in this European development. If we do not we may well find that the Commonwealth will look more to Washington and even to Bonn. Many people have said that if we join the Common Market we should deal a body blow at Commonwealth trade. But the Six would almost certainly agree to arrangements which would safeguard our Commonwealth trade, just as France is allowed to continue free entry for imports from Morocco and other countries associated with her. Indeed, the reverse of this is true. If we in the Commonwealth are not closely associated with this area of rapid growth, in the long run the whole Commonwealth can only be the loser.
Nor does the excuse that to join the Common Market would be harmful to British agriculture look very convincing now. It was summarily dismissed in the leading article of yesterday's Guardian. It is apparent that the countries of the Six intend to look after their own agriculture and our agriculture would gain as a reduction by being associated with them —and gain with some reduction in cost to the taxpayer. Clearly, the Common Market will expand its agriculture and it is looking for possible markets for it.
Lord Netherthorpe, whom no one could accuse of being unfriendly to agriculture said:
I am extremely anxious about a Europe divided between the Six and the Seven.
He also said,
If the Six expand their production there will be nothing to stop the surplus from arriving in our market.
We already know that our pig industry is running into difficulties because of the need of the Danes to find a market to compensate for the loss of part of their German market.
We used to be told that our special relationship with the United States of America would go against us. That has proved to be entirely wrong. The United States has made it all too clear that she is anxious to deal with a more unified Europe. If we are not careful we shall find in a few years that the Six are America's ally number two and we are a long way behind. The recent fracas at Washington is a pointer towards this unhappy type of development.
It was argued that the European Free Trade Association would be the beginning of a bridge towards the Six. That has not turned out as expected. This Association, I am afraid, has tied our hands and, in some respects, has deepened the split. I do not think we shall get any agreement in Europe unless we are prepared to accept the same integration as the Six. We have the task of bringing our partners in the European Free Trade Association along with us.

Sir Hendrie Oakshott: I am following with interest the argument advanced by the horn. Gentleman. If it be a question of joining the Common Market, surely he must realise that the condition precedent for joining it is a willingness to apply a tariff against all outside.

Mr. Grimond: That I understand. It is fundamental to the Common Market to start from there.
At present the Government find themselves in a cul-de-sac. They do not know which way to go. Sometimes they say they are willing to join any functional approach to European problems, but whenever they are asked to join anything in particular they refuse to do so.

The Prime Minister's reputed statement in Washington has had a disastrous effect in Europe. It may have been exaggerated or wrongly reported. But whether rightly or wrongly reported it has confirmed Europeans in their views and suspicions that fundamentally we are out to sabotage their aims while paying lip service in a vague, wishy-washy way to the ideal of European unity.
It is no use the Prime Minister going on smugly reiterating that we will support any suggestions for a way out of the divisions in Europe. If any disunity is being created, we are creating it. If we wish to cure it, it is for us to make some proposals instead of raising objections whenever the bulk of the Europeans want to move rather quicker than we do. I regard the handling of the European situation as the worst mistake of British diplomacy since the war.
The hon. Member for Bebington (Sir H. Oakshott) is horrified at the idea that we should join the Six in any way, but this is an idea which is becoming more and more widely accepted. In its leading article the Guardian says that perhaps it is not possible just now but it is an idea which should be by no means rejected. The Economist is now coming round to our point of view that we must make some agreement at least with them. Even the good old Bow Group is climbing on to the bandwagon. I hope that the Government will not be too far behind the Bow Group. Over Africa they have been catching up and I hope that they will do the same over Europe.
If we joined the Community we could exercise a great influence. People sometimes forget that in the consultations which precede decisions in the Community a great Power is hardly ever in a minority. Instead of our national policies being frustrated, we should find that with some adaptation, they would cover the policies of the whole of Western Europe and be more effective than they are now.
The President of the Board of Trade once said that Britain would have to accept majority voting which might overrule them. Looking at Western Europe today, it seems plain that there is a strong majority opinion in favour of the liberal trading attitudes which are supposed to be held by our own Government. It is sometimes said that even


if that is true, the Six would not welcome us, and I think there is something in that. The Six have worked out their treaty and they might not be so keen to have us as we might be to get in.
But although we have created suspicion on the Continent about our motives, we must remember that M. Monnet, the architect of the Communities, wrote in the Financial Times that
everybody, and I mean everybody
would welcome Britain in, if Britain agreed to the principles of the Common Market. He reiterated this in an interview on "Panorama" not long ago.
They are preparing to accelerate their programme of tariff reduction and solidation. Once again we are pressing them to go slow. I should like to know what we think we shall achieve and what use we hope to make of the time which is gained. If there be a recession, or if some other cause puts a strain on the Common Market in a year or two, and its solidarity is not far enough advanced to stand it, the Franco-German alliance, which is the keystone of the Western alliance, might fall apart with unhappy consequences for Europe. We might be much blamed if we held up progress in the Common Market. Instead of always trying to sew up the Common Market and frustrate it, we should be associating ourselves with its endeavours.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I am not clear about what the hon. Gentleman is advocating. Does he wish us to join the Common Market unilaterally now, immediately?

Mr. Grimond: I shall come to that. We are told that this is not the moment to do what the hon. Member suggests and that we should not attempt to join the Common Market because the Six and the Americans are already negotiating, but we have to make a few basic decisions now.
One of the decisions we have to make now is to bring our policy into line with the new realities on terms which it is possible to get. We should let it be known that at the right moment we are now ready to join the Common Market —that is the answer to the hon. Member —when mutually agreeable terms have been negotiated, but the Government have not made this decision. In the mean-

time, we should cease to hold up their progress and we should discuss with our Commonwealth at the forthcoming meeting of Prime Ministers how the Commonwealth can be associated with the Common Market in such a way that countries of the Commonwealth can share in its trade.
In addition to that decision—that in principle we are ready to go into the Common Market—we should make some other moves even though they might not take us so far. I appreciate the doubts of hon. Members like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) on whether this is the right moment to press our application for membership right home, but there are other moves we could make. First, I suggest that instead of trying to pretend that the Common Market will eventually come to an agreement on our terms, we must make an effort to establish better relations with it.
To say that this is a job which should not be entirely left to the Board of Trade is not to be critical personally of the President of the Board of Trade, but it is true that in Europe he and his predecessor are inextricably linked with the worst period of British obtuseness. I suggest that it would be very good for the Foreign Office to have to take an initiative. This is now a problem of first-class importance to the foreign relations of this country and, in so far as it would raise the level, so to speak, we should make it an affair of prime importance in our foreign policy.
I shall give an example of our obtuse-ness. One way in which we have annoyed the Six was our delay in appointing an ambassador to the European Economic Community. For nine months after the Community had been in existence we failed to be thus represented, unlike the Americans who appointed their ambassador immediately. Again, we have always tried to keep the European Commission out of negotiations in O.E.E.C. thus needlessly building up ill-will against ourselves and irritating its members. These may seem small matters, but they reflect a fundamental attitude—the wish to avoid direct negotiations with the European Economic Community as such and to keep negotiations in the framework of other existing institutions whose character could be imposed on the European edifice.
Secondly, we should accept that there will be tariffs round Common Market countries. I refer again to the intervention by the hon. Member for Bebington. This is what the Common Market is about. It is no good trying to deny it. We should give up trying to revive the Free Trade Area. Instead, we should open negotiations on particular commodities such as motor cars, machinery and so on. We should form a negotiating group from the Seven on particular goods. There is great anxiety in industry and many firms in this country about how they are going to be placed. Some are joining with firms on the Continent. Some are building factories there. I believe the Seven and Six could get down to negotiations on particular commodities more usefully than in trying to fight each other with the Free Trade Area and the Common Market.
It must be remembered that the danger is not that the Common Market will have higher tariffs. On the contrary, the general tariff in many cases will be lower than tariffs most particular countries within the Community and lower also than our own. The danger is that there will be a large Free Trade Area in which our goods will find it very difficult to compete and from this base there will be a large export surplus competing with us in other markets.
The danger which is becoming acutely felt by various companies in the metal trade, engineering, cars and so on is something which public opinion in this country has greatly underestimated. Are our proposals, which are being put forward by the Seven, genuine, negotiating proposals designed to reduce the tariffs of the Six, or are they a sort of weapon with which to try to beat the Six? Whenever we have tried to use the European Free Trade Association or its proposal as weapons, they have broken in our hands, and it would be futile to go forward with them if they were intended for that purpose.
The third suggestion which I want to make is that we should join Euratom and the Coal and Steel Community. I remind the House that only this January the Foreign Secretary said not only that he accepted the Six but that it was a pity that we had not joined the Coal and Steel Community.
I want to ask the Government one or two questions about their attitude, having, I hope, made my attitude clear. I have given the Economic Secretary previous warning of these questions, and no doubt he will have precise and definite answers to give. First, do the Government still rule out the possibility of accepting in principle the Common Market and then going in and seeing what bargains we can get and what arrangements we can make for the Commonwealth? Do they completely rule that out? Do they still hope for a Free Trade Area? I think we must get that out of the way. Do they think that the creation of the Seven is a lever to help get a Free Trade Area? If they do, they are making a fundamental mistake. It would be interesting to know if that is one of their objectives. If it is, how long do they think that the Swiss, the Austrians and the Danes will remain in the European Free Trade Association if we do not find a solution to the problems between it and the Common Market?
Do they feel that the Six are too protectionist for us? Do they maintain that, even though their common tariff is already lower than out tariff in many ways and they are proposing further to lower it by 20 per cent.? Do they want to stop the acceleration? If they do, this is presumably to gain time. I do not say that I am against slowing up the acceleration, but I want to know what they intend to do with the time gained. What policies do they propose to suggest? It is not good enough simply to say, "We will see what the negotiating committee produces and we will support anything which we believe is good." We have said this for years, and I do not think that even the Government pretend that the results are very happy.
Do the Government accept the kind of proposals which I have outlined—that we should join some of the functional organisations, try to raise the diplomatic level and to improve relations and enter into negotiations over the tariffs on specific goods?
The sad feature is that fifteen years ago Britain was at the peak of her power and influence, and the leadership of Europe was hers for the asking. We have thrown it away on grounds which have largely proved wrong. We now see


America putting the good Europeans before ourselves, and I fear that the Commonwealth will be bound to come to terms with Europe unless we take steps to right the position. I believe that we may see Germany take our position as the leading power in Europe.
If we do not join even at this late stage in the movement for European unity —and join with enthusiasm—if we try jealously to guard our independence, which in many ways is disappearing in any case, we shall find that the centrifugal forces which are blowing on this country will grow stronger and stronger, and in fifteen years' time it may well be that we shall have no special relationship with Europe or with America—or even, possibly, with our own Commonwealth.

2.39 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Russell: I will be brief because I know that other hon. Members want to take part in the debate. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) began by saying that Britain had not been awake to what has been happening in Europe. I remind him that the British delegation to Strasbourg in 1952 was so far awake as to what was happening that it was very much in advance of the Common Market. It put forward a plan, called the Strasbourg Plan, for bridging the gap between Europe, the Commonwealth and ourselves. This was done very much in advance of the Common Market idea. It is because I want to make a plea that at least this plan should not be ruled out or that we should consider reviving it that I have intervened in the debate for a moment or two.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said that he was in favour of a common external tariff. Does he realise that this means giving free trade to the countries of the Common Market and putting their common external tariff on all goods from the Commonwealth? If so, that is an amazing and astounding plan for anyone to advocate, even a member of the Liberal Party.
I ask my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to ask his right hon. Friend not to rule out reconsideration of the Strasbourg Plan, because it is a bridge between ourselves and Europe, ourselves and the Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth and Europe, and the Free Trade Area, as well. It has more

significance now than it had at that time, because the Overseas Territories Clause of the Treaty of Rome has made a great difference. After the Strasbourg Plan was passed by the Council of Europe by 84 votes to nil, with six abstentions, the abstainers being the Italian delegates who were not against the Plan in principle, but only against the detail of it, it was sent to O.E.E.C. In O.E.E.C, it was smothered because it is a violation of G.A.T.T. and of the principle of non-discrimination which has governed international trade since the war.
But there is a difference now. The Overseas Territories Clause of the Treaty of Rome is itself a violation of G.A.T.T. It would introduce a new preferential area between the Common Market and the French overseas territories. Therefore, I suggest that, if that is not frowned upon by O.E.E.C, the Americans, the G.A.T.T. organisation or anybody else, they cannot in logic frown on the Strasbourg Plan, which would have set up a preferential area inside Europe and enabled us to give a system of secondary preferences to the countries of Western Europe at a lower rate than those we give to the Commonwealth. They, in turn, would have been able to do the same.
I suggest that that Plan be revived I have made this plea many times before. I make no apology for making it again, because conditions have changed. There has been a violation of G.A.T.T. by the Common Market countries. The Strasbourg Plan is the only means of bridging the gap between the Commonwealth, Europe and ourselves. I ask my hon. Friend to have it reconsidered, particularly in the light of the history of the last few years and what happened over the Overseas Territories Clause of the Treaty of Rome.

2.42 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: With his customary efficiency, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) outlined all the difficulties and harms which at present flow from the economic division of Europe. However, I thought that in his analysis he attached insufficient weight to the difficulties which face this country in joining the Common Market. I was sure that I detected most clearly the usual


approach of the Liberal Party—and indeed some others—which has to prove its liberalism and open-mindedness by always blaming its own country for everything that happens.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland admitted that one of the conditions of the Common Market was that there should be a common external tariff. I do not think that he faced up to the natural consequences of that position. He shaded it afterwards by saying that, admittedly, there has to be a common external tariff, but that starting from there we could go on and negotiate on individual commodities. For example, it might be possible to make individual arrangements on individual items such as motor cars, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and perhaps other items.
That approach does not comprehend the nature of the European Economic Community, which is fundamentally political, and not economic, in nature. Its member countries cannot afford to break down this external tariff wall, which is the buckler of their existence, because if they do the political content of their arrangement ceases. They have said over and over again that they will not do that. The idea that we can eat away this tariff wall outside Europe and in some way induce them, commodity by commodity, to throw overboard the whole of their political structure is an illusion and should not be entertained for one single moment.
If we are to have this common external tariff, it must be imposed on Commonwealth countries. If we had joined the Common Market, should we have joined it with the Commonwealth or without? I imagine we would suggest that it would be more appropriate to have joined with the Commonwealth, but would the Common Market have had the Commonwealth? The wider the association becomes the more watered down does its political content become. I feel certain that it would not have had the Commonwealth, with all its primary commodities coming into the Common Market free of duty or with the appropriate low duty. It would not have been ready to accept cheap cloth from Hong Kong or primary produce from Australia, Canada and elsewhere.
Furthermore, would the Commonwealth countries have been willing to

come in? Would Canada, Australia or India have been willing to submit to European direction of their economic life? Would they have been willing to accept that a gentleman in Brussels, whose name they cannot pronounce and of whom they have never heard, should be the final economic arbiter of their destiny? I do not think we could have brought in the Commonwealth countries even if we had wished to, and if they had been acceptable to the European countries.
Should we have gone in without the Commonwealth countries? That is an economic possibility. I accept what the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) has said more than once, that the economic consequences of getting over this tariff wall are not so great to some of our more developed Commonwealth countries. Australia and Canada do not attach the same importance to tariffs as they did when they were primary producing countries.
But it is to the political side that we should look. Is it possible for us to say to India, with her starving millions, to Pakistan, with her empty treasury, and to other nations in the Commonwealth which are emerging or just about to emerge, "We are extremely pleased to have you as members of the Commonwealth. We are extremely glad that you accept the Queen as head of the Commonwealth, and we want to do everything for you. We intend to step up investments in your country. As from next week, however, we propose to impose a 20 per cent. tariff on your primary goods which come into this country." I am sure that India would say, "That is that. The Commonwealth has had it. We shall join some other outfit."

Mr. Arthur Holt: Does not the hon. Member agree that once we have accepted the principle of entry into the organisation of the Six it is conceivable that we could negotiate upon such a question with the Six?

Mr. Kershaw: That is the hope, but if we are to believe what the Six say it is clear that they will insist on a minimum standard of political control. There is no other reason for their existence. They would never agree to any washing away of a common external tariff. They have said so, in terms, over and over again.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland also said that the United States is turning from us and now wishes to support the Six, and that it is entirely our fault. I agree that the United States is showing favouritism to the Six, but I do not think that it is our fault. The United States has its own interests. It would like to see a United States of Europe, overlooking the fact that entirely different circumstances govern Europe. I believe that the United States is really scared of Europe ganging up against it. Now that its balance of payments is not looking so hot it is afraid that it might find an external tariff over the whole of Europe operating against it.
I believe that the inspired leak in Washington when the Prime Minister was there was an effort to keep Europe divided until after the Presidential election, and after the Congressional election, when the United States was ready to say what it could do, to come in with an Atlantic alliance conception of trade. Both politically and economically it is the immediate interest of the United States to keep Europe apart, and it is for that reason that it favours now one side and now the other.
I agree with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland about the functional approach. There we can do something. I agree that we can do more in future than we have been willing to do in the past. We can have a more convincing association with Euratom and with the Coal and Steel Community. That would be to our economic advantage, and it would show our willingness to co-operate.
Apart from that, surely the way in which we can overcome this split in Europe is not on the economic side, because the split in Europe is not fundamentally based on economic premises; it is a political split. We ought to approach it on the political side. I think that we have scope within the political possibilities open to us today to be able to offer to Europe various political forms of co-operation.
The announcement that we had yesterday in the House about Blue Streak indicates at least one way in which it might be possible for this country to co-operate with Europe in greater detail. And I hope that we shall not feel ourselves inhibited in future from co-operating

with Europe on the supply of atomic secrets, both for peaceful and warlike uses, by American legislation to which at one time we were forced to agree because of necessity and which ought not to continue in being. If it continues in being it has the effect of dividing the Six and the Seven in Europe.
I believe that an alliance working together with France and Germany could be made infinitely easier if the difficulty about American legislation could be got over. That is the way we can overcome this split which will have economic consequences, but the political consequences will be inevitably more severe. We should address ourselves to the political side of the question.

2.52 p.m.

Major H. Legge-Bourke: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) that this is a question which we have to consider primarily from the political point of view. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), in recommending that we should eventually become a full member of the Common Market, approached it principally from an economic point of view. That is where the fallacy of his argument lies. In his previous utterances, and, indeed, in the interview which he gave on "Panorama" on the B.B.C. this week, M. Monnet made quite clear that the principal object of the Common Market project is political union in Europe.
We have seriously to consider what would be the position of Che United Kingdom and the Commonwealth if we were to find, having wrapped ourselves so much in the economic machinery of the Common Market, we were unavoidably drawn into a political federation of Europe or part of Europe. I think that it is constitutionally impossible for us to accept that. The moment we do that we are bound to see eventually a complete break-up of the whole Commonwealth structure. It was for that reason that at the time of the discussions on the Schumann Plan I felt unable to go with my party. There were six of us at that time in the House, when the Conservative Party, then in opposition, wanted the Labour Government of that day to go in right at the beginning of the Schumann Plan.

Mr. Alfred Robens: I followed the argument of the hon. and gallant Member with great interest, and I agree with it. It was because the French laid down that we could not even attend the first conference unless we accepted the principle of a supra-national authority.

Major Legge-Bourke: It was because of its supra-nationality that I disliked it so much. It was for that reason that I felt that the whole supra-national concept being built up in Europe was something which we should do our best to resist. I think that it is completely inalienable to the Commonwealth idea that we have always had. It comes down to this. Even supposing we were to accept the economic obligations to the Common Market, that in itself would at once mean a complete revision of a great deal of our internal policies, and not least our agricultural policy in this country.
I am certain that we must always be prepared to change and adjust our views to changing circumstances. It may be that we shall have to make a considerable revision of many aspects of our policy in the light of what has happened in Europe. But until we have worked out what sort of agriculture we want, the consequences of Part II of the Rome Treaty and matters of that kind, it would be suicidal for us to go into the Common Market as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland suggests, apart altogether from the political considerations and the constitutional difficulties with which we could be confronted and which could put us in a most invidious position.
What worries me most of all about what is happening in Europe at the moment is the situation in the light of the history of this matter. There is no doubt that the Americans solemnly believed after the Second World War that they could bring about a political federation in Europe. They did their best to promote it, and many of the utterances of President Eisenhower when he was in Europe showed that he had it in mind. He said that unless Europe was prepared to work together, obviously on federal lines, Europe could not be sure of American military support any more. I know that pressure has been brought to bear, and I am certain that if it came to America choosing between the Six and the Seven she would choose the Six every

time because that is consistent with the sort of federation which exists in the United States. America believes that because the new world and federation get on all right, it must also apply in the old world too. One could quote many precedents on this point, not least from Disraeli.
I am sure that the Common Market, having come about in the way that it has, we shall now have a wrangle to try to divide the remaining Seven and to drag as many of the Seven into that Common Market with a view ultimately to a political federation of the States in that Common Market. For that reason, I have regretted our being so ready to
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer
to the Common Market idea. We have blown neither hot nor cold over it, whereas we ought to have opposed it all along. We have said that we welcome it, and all the time we know that we would hate to be in a position in which we were forced to choose between entering it or breaking it up. It would be impossible to come to a decision without risking the break up of the Commonwealth.
I hope my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury will not concede the point which the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has asked him to do, but will make sure that we have got our own policies right in this country first, that in any step that we take in this direction we will have full Commonwealth agreement and will preserve the rights which have proved so valuable in the past.

2.58 p.m.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) for choosing to raise this matter of European economic affairs. As he said, he courteously let me know of some questions that he intended to ask, although I am bound to say that I detected one or two more. At any rate, in the short time available I shall do my best to cover the ground.
This matter is most important. As I think most hon. Members will agree, there have been some misconceptions. This occasion provides a good opportunity to clarify the Government's policy


in relation to both our past attitude and our present endeavours.
The hon. Member seemed to imply that we have been too slow in our reaction to developments in Europe. He said that we have not awakened to what is happening in Europe. But many months before the Treaty of Rome was signed—indeed, in the summer of 1956— an O.E.E.C. working party was set up, with our full support, to consider the possibility of wider free trade arrangements embracing all the members of O.E.E.C. Our intention to support this arrangement was announced in the House before the end of 1956. Again, within a year of the ending of discussions on a wider Free Trade Area, the E.F.T.A. Convention was initialled.
These were not slow reactions in matters of such paramount importance. I think that there are many people outside the E.F.T.A. countries who were very surprised that we had been able to reach agreement so quickly.
If I have time, I shall deal with some of the lesser matters which the hon. Member mentioned, relations with O.E.E.C, and so on, but I think that it would be for the convenience of the House if I were to turn straight away to the more substantial point of criticism he made, that the United Kingdom ought to have joined the Common Market or ought to do so now.
This course was favoured by the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt). I heard his speech in the Budget debate, and, once again today, the same argument has been advanced by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. It is most important to draw a distinction between our attitude to what others have done and the possibility of joining the Common Market ourselves. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said that the Common Market is a reality. Again and again, we have made it plain not only that we accept the Treaty of Rome but that we welcome it as a major contribution to the consolidation of Europe.
The hon. Gentleman said—I took his words down—that we were trying to frustrate the Common Market. I hope that that was a slip of the tongue. It is not so at all. What we do believe is that it would be of great benefit to

all if there were complementary provisions embracing the rest of Europe as well.
I shall not weary the House with a long rehearsal of the arguments against our joining the Common Market. The hon. Member, in opening the debate, said that we chose to magnify the difficulties of association with the Common Market. The difficulties are very real. The objections to it still exist and it is absolutely vital that they should be understood. My hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Sir H. Oakshott) pointed out that one of the essential features of the European Economic Community is the common external tariff. This is of paramount importance. If we agreed to bring our tariff into line with the common external tariff, Commonwealth Preference would inevitably go and so would Commonwealth free entry except in respect of those items where the common tariff is nil.
This would be the inevitable consequence of following the suggestion which has been made. The point has been made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) and Wembley, South (Mr. Russell), so I shall not elaborate it now.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South asked me to draw, once again, to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what he said about the Strasbourg Plan. I will certainly do that. I hope he will forgive me if I do not deal with it in any detail this afternoon, in view of the limited time available.
As the House knows, within the E.E.C. tariffs are being removed on foodstuffs as well as on industrial products. For us to conform with this policy would certainly mean removing from our agricultural and horticultural producers the tariff protection which they at present have against exports from the Six. In his speech, the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland quoted the words of Lord Netherthorpe, when he said that he was anxious about a Europe divided between the Six and the Seven. I agree, and nothing that I have said about the difficulties which the hon. Gentleman's proposals would raise for our agricultural and horticultural industries conflicts with what


the hon. Gentleman quoted from Lord Netherthorpe.
Although there has been an increasing appreciation in this country of the need for a closer approach to Europe, there is much force in what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) said. We have not yet in this country reached a stage where it could be said that there was general support for the aims of political federation which undoubtedly lie behind the Treaty of Rome. Moreover—I say this with great humility—I really believe that we must keep a sense of proportion in all this. After all, the fact is that our major trading interests are outside Europe, the major trading interests of the Six are inside Europe.
We must ask ourselves whether, in these circumstances, it would be wise to surrender the freedom of our world-wide commercial policy to the decision of a European grouping. We have not been able to find any practicable way of overcoming these obstacles to membership of the European Economic Community. I would invite those who advocate that course to consider the consequences very seriously and to tell us some time—I realise that this afternoon the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has not had enough time—in a little greater detail how they would deal with them.
The hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland and Bolton, West have advocated unilateral reduction or removal of tariffs by the United Kingdom, because, they say, this would be the best means of furthering progress. I respect their views, but I hope that they will forgive me if I do not embark at this juncture on the merits or demerits of returning to complete free trade with all countries. I do not think that a unilateral gesture of this kind would solve our problems in Europe. Whatever benefits there might be for our economy, we should not thereby remove the discrimination which we face in the Common Market.
I would have thought that the best course is to secure what advantage we can from reducing our most-favoured-nation tariffs on individual items in the G.A.T.T. tariff negotiations which are to begin next winter.

Mr. Grimond: Mr. Grimond indicated assent.

Mr. Barber: I am grateful that that is acceptable to the Liberal Party.

Mr. Grimond: That is what the Government propose to do, is it? That is a statement of policy?

Mr. Barber: Certainly. I would not have said it if it had not been.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland referred to the question of acceleration. It is right that he should have drawn the attention of the House to the concrete difficulties which face us in the immediate future.
I should like briefly to tell the House about the consequences which would follow if the so-called Hallstein proposals were to go through. As the House knows, the Governments of the Six have not yet accepted these proposals, but we must consider the consequences if the Treaty of Rome were accelerated in accordance with those proposals. If that were to happen, the Six would reduce their internal tariffs on 1st July next by 20 per cent. instead of 10 per cent. Taking into account the reduction of 10 per cent. which was made at the beginning of 1959, there would then be a 30 per cent. reduction in tariffs covering trade within the group. On the same date, 1st July, the Six would also make their first move towards a common external tariff.
I do not want to elaborate, but, very broadly, that means that for imports from outside the group the tariff of the Six would rise or fall by 30 per cent. of the difference between the basic levels of 1957 and the level of the eventual common tariff. Obviously, where the national tariff is below the common tariff—I am speaking in terms of the Six—it would go up. Where it is above, it would go down. These changes would be made on the basis that the eventual level of the common tariff would be reduced by 20 per cent. subject to reciprocity from third countries.
It is perfectly true that under these arrangements we should gain some advantage in the French and Italian markets, because, in general, the tariff level in those markets is above that of the common tariff. Four-and-a-half per cent. of our exports, worth about £160 million, in 1959 went to these markets where we get some benefits, but these


benefits would fall far short of compensating for the losses we should suffer in the German and Benelux markets. These countries take 10 per cent. of our exports, which, in 1959, amounted to more than £340 million. In these countries, there would be a sharp increase in the external tariff, while the internal tariff would be reduced.
The increase in tariffs by Germany would be particularly severe. As the House may remember, Germany reduced her industrial tariff by 25 per cent. in 1957, and to restore this cut and to move upwards towards the common tariff would, in some cases, mean doubling the external tariff, while the internal tariff would be reduced. I have with me a number of instances of the way in which this would work, but, again, I do not think the House would wish me to go into them in detail now.
I have referred to the immediate consequences for our trade, but there is also the wider consideration that acceleration as proposed by Professor Hallstein would deprive us of the breathing space which would otherwise be provided up to 1st January, 1962, which is the date laid down in the Treaty of Rome for the first move towards the common tariff.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland asked what we would do during the eighteen months. This is a matter which we have considered a great deal with our partners in the E.F.T.A. and I believe that in those eighteen months, given good will on both sides, the Six and the Seven, we could make much progress towards a permanent and com-prehensive settlement of this European trade problem. The hon. Member asked, in passing, whether we still hoped for a wider free trade area. I assure him that the creation of a single European market is still our objective.
The hon. Member said that the Government did not know which way to turn. This simply is not true. As I mentioned to the House during my speech in the Budget debate on 6th April, we and the other representatives of the Seven have already put forward in Paris a proposal which, I believe, any fair-minded person could describe as imaginative, and certainly outward-looking, for dealing with the situation which will arise on 1st July next. Again, I do not wish to go into detail. I would

only add, in view of what the hon. Member said, that these are genuine proposals.
We have said that we—that is, the Seven—would be prepared to discuss extending on 1st July, not only to the Six, but also to all other countries who are members of G.A.T.T., in accordance with the principles of G.A.T.T., the tariff cuts which we are due to make on that date to the extent that the Six are prepared to act on a reciprocal basis.
That proposal, which assumes that the original Treaty of Rome timetable will be followed, does not seek any special privilege for the Seven in the E.E.C. countries. It does not contemplate a special position for the Six in the E.F.T.A. countries. What it envisages is a world-wide tariff reduction by both groups. It would obviously, therefore, be of great benefit to world trade as a whole, both directly as regards imports into the thirteen countries and indirectly as regards trade with third countries in so far as they were induced to offer compensating reductions in their tariffs in return.
The hon. Member asked whether we still regarded the Seven as a lever. The fact is that the Seven, acting as a unit, has made what I believe to be an imaginative and sensible offer. That in itself shows its value in any further negotiations for freeing trade in Europe.
The next question by the hon. Member was whether we would be prepared to negotiate on particular commodities. Whether there will be negotiation in respect of particular commodities in the Trade Committee, which is considering the matter, we must wait and see. In the absence, however, of a free trade area between the Six and the Seven, any reductions in tariffs would have to take place on a most-favoured-nation basis. I should have thought that G.A.T.T. would be the better place for that.
The hon. Member then asked how long the Austrians and the Swiss and some other country would wait for a wider solution. I can only tell him that I went to the last ministerial meeting in Vienna and that I can assure the House, from my own experience there, that there is no reason whatever to doubt the solidarity of the European Free Trade Association. Indeed, I stress the great opportunity which the E.F.T.A. market offers


us. It embraces some very rich countries. National income per head in Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries ranges between £300 and £450 as against about £350 in this country in 1958. Another factor of great importance is that these countries obtain from abroad a relatively large proportion of the goods they require.
I wanted to end on this note, because there are great opportunities—

Mr. Grimond: Has the hon. Gentleman nothing to say about functional organisations such as Euratom?

Mr. Barber: I have a considerable amount, but time is so short. I shall be very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about it. I have a lot of information here, and about our relations with it and the way it was built up, but in view of the limits of time I think that I ought to conclude on the note I have just struck.

Mr. Robens: The hon. Gentleman will write a nice long letter.

Mr. Barber: Yes, a nice long letter as the right hon. Gentleman says.
Although the population of the European Free Trade Association is little more than half that of the Economic Community its combined national income is about two-thirds of the other and its combined imports and exports three-quarters. The annual import bill of our partners in the E.F.T.A. is about £3,000 million a year, nearly two-thirds of those imports being manufactured goods. Our exports to them at present are only about £250 million worth. I think that these figures indicate the extent of the opportunities before us; but, of course, the importance of the E.F.T.A. lies not only in the commercial benefits which it holds for us. I believe that the Association provides also a new way of carrying forward European co-operation.

BURNHAM COMMITTEE (NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOLMASTERS)

3.16 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: On 23rd March of this year my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education once more rejected the claim of the National Association of Schoolmasters to representation on the Burnham Committee and its associated bodies. I am not what is called an "educationist" in any sense of the word, but I am and have been for a long time very interested and concerned in labour relations, and I am particularly concerned that the Government should set a good example in these matters.
This is another case of what has always been a thorny problem, the problem of what, sometimes in a derogatory sense, is called the break-away union. I do not wish in any way to minimise the difficulty in which employers, such as the Government, and private employers, find themselves on such problems. We have agreed in various international charters which we have signed that everybody shall have the right to join the union of his choice, and we have also agreed—I think that it must be agreed by everybody—that such a right is illusory if, after a certain period of time, that union is not recognised.
Of course, one cannot recognise any union immediately, however small. That would be ridiculous. A union, to achieve recognition, has to go through a fairly hard struggle, and it is right that it should do so; otherwise, the whole of the principles of collective bargaining would break down. It has to show that it keeps for a long period of time substantial numbers of the workers in the trade or profession or industry. In other words, it has to show high survival value, because it is by surviving, in spite of the great difficulties which unrecognised unions have, that it proves to the world that it is fulfilling a need which existing unions apparently are unable to fulfil.
It is by that bitter experience which such unions have to go through that, I suggest, they ought to be judged; and I suggest that the National Association of Schoolmasters, which has increased its membership in spite of being unrecognised over what is now a very


long period of years, has, in fact, proved that it is fulfilling a need, and that it should, therefore, be given the recognition which only is of any use, namely, a seat or seats on the Burnham Committee.
I am not saying that because it is right to recognise it now it was necessarily wrong to refuse it recognition in the past. It is part of my thesis relating to survival value that it has to go through the mill for a long period of time. The present representation on the Burnham Committee from the point of view of the teachers' side is, of course, enormously weighted in favour of the National Union of Teachers. That is quite right, because it is by far the largest union. I think it has 16 members on the central committee.
There are, then, other small and somewhat specialised unions which have either two seats or one seat, unions such as the Incorporated Society of Assistant Schoolmasters. None of these has more than four seats. The N.U.T. at any time can, obviously, outvote the others, and, on numbers, it is right that it should, and the National Association of Schoolmasters in no way wishes to prejudice—indeed, could not presume to do so—the absolute majority of the N.U.T. on the Burnham Committee.
What, then, are the reasons given by the Minister for refusing what, on numbers, is an obvious claim for some seats, two or three or perhaps even four, because about 20,000 schoolmasters in England and 1,000 in Scotland are now members of the National Association of Schoolmasters? The first reason given by the Minister in his letter is that representation in the Teachers' Panel should be by types of school. I think that the best answer I can hope to give to that is that given by The Times Educational Supplement on 1st April, which said:
The Minister's refusal to allow the National Association of Schoolmasters a place on the Burnham Committee simply will not do. He declares, first, that representation on the Teachers' Panel should be by types of school. This is. of course, a quite arbitrary amplification of the duty laid upon him by the 1944 Act to consult with representatives of the teachers about salaries.
Anyone who looks at Section 89 of the 1944 Act will see that there is nowhere laid upon the Minister any statutory obligation of the sort suggested, that representation should be by types

of school. The Act is silent on that point. Therefore, it is a requirement laid down by the Minister, who is himself virtually the employer, without statutory authority. It may be right or it may be wrong, but he is not obliged to do that.
That raises the question of the extent to which an employer is entitled to say to employees how they should organise for the purposes of representation. A great many employers do not like the way their employees choose to organise. For example, I do not suppose that any of us would very much care for the way that the employees in Northern Rhodesia organise. They organise themselves on the basis of colour and have white unions and black unions.
That is a far worse type of division than any division suggested in this case, yet I do not think anybody has suggested to the employers in the copper mines that they should refuse to recognise either of those types of union because they do not like the way the men organise. That is a very extreme case. However, I suggest that an employer is not entitled to say to employees how he thinks they should organise even if the employer is right.
The next reason given is that of general demand, which I am sure we would all share, for unity and solidarity at this time among the teachers. As some of my hon. Friends wish to speak about this, I will content myself with a sentence. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I wonder whether my right hon. Friend thinks that the refusals by himself and his predecessors over the years to recognise this body have promoted the unity and solidarity of the teaching profession. If it has not in the past, why is it likely to do so in the future? It does not promote unity and solidarity to deny to a substantial body of men what is an elementary right. It again raises the question of whether an employer is entitled to say, "No" to a body of workers which he may not like.
That brings me to the vexed question of equal pay. It is Government policy, and is certainly my desire and that of almost the whole of the House, that there should be equal pay in the teaching profession. The question is to what extent the N.A.S. has abandoned the claim that equal pay should not apply in the future.


I think that it has abandoned it. I think that its claim, for family allowances for male teachers and that the lower-paid male teacher should not be depressed to the women's standard, but that the women should be raised to the standard of the lower-paid male teacher, shows that it has abandoned it. But even if it has not abandoned it, that, again, is no reason why an employer should say to a substantial body of workers that he will not recognise them because he does not want to hear their claim for a reversal of policy.
We are all entitled to make propaganda for a reversal of policy if we do not agree with it. This is a free country and one is entitled to make that propaganda within one's collective bargaining machinery, if it deals with rates of pay and conditions, as well as outside that machinery. I do not suppose that the Association will have much success because, in any event, it would be in a substantial minority, and I imagine that almost all the other members of the Burnham Committee on the teachers' side are in favour of conditions of equal pay, as I am myself.
I have recently been re-reading debates which took place about ten years ago when much the same problem arose in the Post Office. I have noted very powerful speeches made then by some colleagues of my right hon. Friend, such as the present Lord Privy Seal and the present Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, in which they said that the pretentions of the then Postmaster-General to decide which unions he liked and which he did not like were nothing more than the creation of house or company unions, than which there was no more serious word in the whole of the vocabulary of industrial relations.
I think that the position is becoming, in some ways, like that in this case. The reasons given, of solidarity and unity, are not convincing. We are bound to ask whether there are, behind this, some other unexpressed reasons. Members have received a lot of literature on this subject, not the least a very violent and inflammatory circular from the N.U.T.—a circular which, I think, cannot have done its cause very much good.
Covering that circular was a letter emphasising the gravity of the matter and the serious consequences that might flow from any decision to alter the Teachers' Panel of the Burnham Committee. If that is not something in the nature of a threat I do not know what is. Indeed, locally there has been not merely threats, but action. I instance, on the local level, what happened in Durham in 1954.
The Durham County Council wished to bring on to a consultative committee on educational matters one member of the N.A.S., together with eight members of the N.U.T. The N.U.T. walked out when Durham County Council refused to alter its plan. However, the consultative committee carried on for three years in the absence of the N.U.T., which then capitulated and came back on the original terms.
This circular is something of a threat. I do not myself think that that is necessarily very wicked. In the world of industrial relations, power is a weapon which is almost always used and we must not be too frail or mealy-mouthed about it, but we should recognise it for what it is. This is a threat that the N.U.T. would walk out of the Burnham Committee, and no Minister of Education would like to face that, of course.
I know that my right hon. Friend does not give that as a reason and has expressly declined it as a reason in 1955, unlike one of his predecessors, the late Mr. George Tomlinson, who quite clearly stated that that was one of his reasons in 1950 for rejecting this application. Mr. Tomlinson said that he was clear that the conditions did not exist in which it would be possible for him to present the representation of additional bodies on the Teachers' Panel of the Burnham Committee against the wishes of that panel as at present constituted. In other words, the wishes of the existing members of the Teachers' Panel were paramount in his mind.
In 1955, my right hon. Friend disclaimed that as a proper consideration. He said that he would not let this consideration stand in the way if he thought that a reconstitution of the Committee was called for. I am sure that he is still of that opinion and is not, in fact, submitting to blackmail in this matter.
At the same time, I appeal to the National Union of Teachers. This fight has now become so bitter that it would be an act of generosity on the part of the N.U.T.—since it would retain its majority whatever happened—now to realise that the National Association of Schoolmasters is not to be defeated by these threats, that it has grown in strength under the threats, and that persecution, as in so many cases, makes its determination and its cause even stronger.
If the National Union of Teachers were to walk out, I do not believe that it would do that union any good. It has nothing to fear from a small representation of the N.A.S. and, furthermore, I am not at all convinced that the majority of teachers in the N.U.T. would be behind any such threat or any such action.
In those circumstances, it is now up to the N.U.T. to see whether this hatchet cannot be buried. If that does not happen, I appeal to my right hon. Friend to look at this matter once again. This refusal is a denial of something fundamental. How many members has the N.A.S. to get before it receives recognition?

Mr. L. M. Lever: It has 21,000 now.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: It has 21,000 now, so it is a substantial body. How many more has it to get before it is recognised—30,000, 40,000? Where does the ante begin? The N.A.S. is entitled to know at what target it has to aim. Or is it never to be recognised? Is it the truth of the matter that the Burnham Committee constitution, which is now old, is to be preserved for all time, whatever changes there may be in the structure of education or sentiments of teachers? Is that to be the answer given to the N.A.S.? If that is not the answer, may we know what answer and what comfort it is to get?

3.34 p.m.

Dr. Horace King: I hope that I shall put a point of view diametrically opposed to that put by the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) with as much moderation and fairness as he has shown. I believe that the decision which the Minister had to take was largely a matter of judgment, although underneath

were involved certain deep principles which I shall refer to in my speech.
Most of my hon. Friends support the Minister on having done in this case what the Economist reproved him for not having done in the Crowther case. He has grasped this nettle instead of sitting on it. I disagreed with the Minister on Crowther. Yet I thought that The Times Educational Supplement was singularly unfair to his great speech on that occasion. I support him on his decision over Burnham, and I hope that this debate will clear some of the air.
I am a member of the National Union of Teachers, but if this were a mere matter of inter-union rivalry I would not have taken part in this debate, nor would the Minister have made the decision he has made. In the more backward days of Toryism, breakaway unionism was encouraged. It paid the employer, or he thought it did, to pit off one group of workers against another in the name of freedom and in the name of the rights of minorities. There is always a specious and attractive case for any fractional group; it can press sectional claims to the disadvantage of the whole body, and this sounds good, very good, to the section. It has the comfortable position advocating policies without responsibility and without having to implement them.
Trade unionists have learnt from long and bitter experience, just as enlightened employers have now learnt and most progressive Conservatives willingly agree, that the fragmentation of a group of workers is, in the long run, and, indeed, in the short run, not good for the health of any body which has to negotiate, and at the end of negotiations to arrive at a settlement.
I believe that the interests both of the employers, in this case the local authorities, and of the teachers—and today there are nearly 300,000 teachers, most of whom are women—will be best served when the profession is united and when men and women speak together with one voice in the name of the profession, not only on their material interests, but on the great question of education itself. No hon. Member would advocate separate salaries for men and women who are hon. Members of this House. No doctor, lawyer or civil servant—and certainly no


civil servant in the Ministry of Education —would advocate such a policy.
There are historical reasons why this unity has not been achieved in the teaching profession. Chief of. these is the fifty years battle in which teachers, like civil servants and local government workers, have been engaged over equality between sexes. That battle is over. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that he too believes in equal pay. Many fine men and women have fought for equal pay. I am thinking of the late Ralph Morley, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), among their leaders, of those back benchers who fought the battle in 1944 when this very Burnham Committee was being reorganised in that 1944 Act. That battle has been won, and we have written on to the Statute Book that all employees for whom the Government are responsible shall receive equal pay.
We have by no means achieved complete emancipation of women, but the battle for equality of the sexes marches on in this country and throughout the world. I believe that the way is forward and not backward. The N.A.S. does not accept this view. It is true it accepts the law; it cannot do other in a law abiding country but in contrast to what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Darwen this afternoon, at its last conference its president said:
 I might believe in equal pay if it were possible in our profession, but all the actions of a Government in the House of Commons, pressed by the naive sentimentality of a popular clamour, all the bawlings of political parties at Hyde Park corner, cannot alter economic law. Men and women will demand for their work different rates of salary. If schoolmasters are to be recruited, the negotiations of their salaries within the limitations imposed by this doctrinaire political slogan must cease.
As for co-operating on the Burnham Committee, the president said:
Not only must we have representatives on any national negotiating body; there must also be within such a body, every facility for putting forward the case for separate consideration for the schoolmaster … and safeguard of access to independent arbitration … since a policy of separate consideration is likely to be rejected by the other parties represented.
As the "other parties" referred to represent over 250,000 million teachers pledged to equal pay, and as the reference is also to local authorities whose

instructions from the Government are to honour the national principle of equal pay, and as "separate consideration" means differential sex treatment, the word "likely" is an understatement there.
Behind this there is a great problem. The present inadequate salaries paid to teachers weigh heaviest on young married teachers. Marriage is a financial handicap—Bacon said that children are hostages to fortune. This burden will always be grievous as long as family responsibilities are insufficiently allowed for under Income Tax reliefs and family allowances, and as long as teachers are underpaid. But this is an inequity that separates, not men from women, but men and women with dependants from men and women without dependants. It is not confined to teachers—it is part of life itself. It affects everyone whose income has to support more than one person, and the real solution is an adequate professional salary for teachers.
I believe that to reintroduce into the Burnham Committee, on the grounds of this hardship, the question of sex inequality would be to do a great disservice to that Committee, and a great disservice to the teaching profession, to the law of the land, and to womanhood. Even in the days when this issue of equal pay was a live one, every successive Government took that view. To change now would be to retreat from the principle of equal pay even at the moment when it is being achieved—

Mr. Robert Jenkins: When the hon. Gentleman refers to equal pay, does he mean that if the National Association of Schoolmasters at some place or at some time were to advocate family allowances for those teachers who had dependants—whether they be men or women—he would consider that submission a bar to entry?

Dr. King: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I shall deal with that matter in a moment.
When Lord Hailsham was faced in 1957 with exactly this demand, he said what I have really just now said. His words were:
I would be very loath to allow the Burnham Committee to be used as a vehicle for undermining this policy.
The policy to which Lord Hailsham there referred was the policy of equal


pay, for which he had fought as a backbencher in this House at the time of the 1944 Act.
From the start, the Burnham Committee was never a body whose teacher representation was on a proportional basis. It was built functionally. It was built to include practitioners in the various departments of education so that they could each put their special problems. Accordingly, the Burnham Committee draws its teachers from the primary-secondary complex of schools, on the one hand, and from the grammar and technical schools on the other.
Every kind of teacher is represented on it. This representation has nothing to do with the numbers inside any of the groups there represented. Groups that are numerically small are on the Committee because they represent some special type of school or education. The Minister wants the Burnham Committee to continue to function effectively as it has done for so long. So do the local authorities, so do the teachers and so, I would say, does this House.
The two aims for which the National Association of Schoolmasters exists are, first, that boys should be taught by men teachers—but that is outside the terms of reference of the Burnham Committee and could never be dealt with inside it. The other aim is unequal pay. It is a point of view. If the Minister is to begin to recognise places on the Burnham Committee for policy groups, then once that is conceded for one it will have to be conceded in turn for anyone who wishes to claim it—the National Union of Women Teachers, the National Association of Head Teachers, the Class Teachers' Association—

Mr. Dudley Williams: Why not?

Dr. King: I will come to that in a moment—always provided that the group holds a sectional view strongly enough to demand separation and representation.
Fractionalism encourages fractionalism. A profession has many facets. With the prize of a seat on Burnham as the reward for organising a separate group, the hiving off of other dissident groups might well follow the first break through.
It is no secret, for example, that 100,000 primary teachers are profoundly disappointed at the recent Burnham de-

cisions which give them unequal treatment as compared with their secondary teacher colleagues. But such a fragmentation of a union would be as disastrous for any profession, as for any trade union. It would make the Burnham Committee unworkable and would in the end, I believe, harm the great purposes served by the Minister and all who work for education.
Critics of the union have said that it wants a closed shop. The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to Durham. Durham is noteworthy for all sorts of peculiar things in the history of education. It is a matter of simple fact that about the only time when the union threatened direct action was when Durham—thinking that it was doing the profession a good turn—tried to make membership of the union compulsory on all teachers. This was successfully resisted by the very union which stood to benefit. The teachers threatened to go on strike to preserve the right for Durham teachers not to belong to the union but to enjoy all the benefits which the union has gained for its members without being fair enough to join it.
It is one thing, however, to believe in the open shop and another to encourage a policy of fragmenting the employees' side of Burnham. The advances which the profession has made in status, in salaries, in civil liberties, in conditions of work, are due in no small measure to the fact that for 50 years the teachers have built up a union in which men and women members of the same profession have been united. I think it is that unity rather than the unity of any particular organisation, the unity of men and women inside a profession, to which the Minister was referring in his reply to the National Association of Schoolmasters.
The hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) referred to the question of family allowances. I am anxious not to say anything which will exacerbate relations between my colleagues of the National Association of Schoolmasters and the union. I would say this though: first, that the National Union of Teachers is open to all teachers. There is no bar of colour, creed or views, even on sex equality. It is the National Association itself which bars from membership all teachers who do not accept the principle


of unequal pay, and it reaffirmed this ban at its last annual conference, despite attempts to modify it.
Of that conference, the former secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters wrote—and this is the answer to the hon. Member for Dulwich whose difference on this I regret very much because we see eye to eye on so many educational matters—these words:
 I must however express my concern that there are those who think that the time has come for the Association to revise its policies, to cease its opposition to equal pay and concentrate on palliatives such as family and/or children's allowances.
He went on to say:
 It would be a tragedy for the National Association of Schoolmasters to falter on this fundamental question.
The House in my time has faced a number of these problems—the Hants and Dorset bus workers, a section of Post Office engineers and a section of the Amalgamated Engineering Union workers. Each time, although a very attractive case for a sectional group has been put up, the House, whatever party has been in power, has supported Ministers when they came down against fragmentation, against sacrificing the majority to the minority, because it is worth remembering in a democracy that the majority has rights as well as the minority.
Both sides gain from this. Employers know that the negotiations which they can conduct are firm negotiations and employees secure the gains that come from unity at a negotiating table, a unity based on blending and reconciling all the tugs and pushes of the various sectional interests. But this request, I think, is even less attractive than those I have mentioned. It asks for representation on Burnham for a body representing a minority group of men inside the profession and a tiny minority of members of the profession as a whole, and for an opinion which runs counter to the basic principle which Parliament has remitted to every body which has to negotiate salaries for public servants, including the Burnham Committee.
This great teaching profession is a mixed body, one in which men and women work side by side. Their work is equally important. All the great superstructure of secondary education is

built, in the last analysis, on the work of women in the infant schools of this country, work which is beyond the capacity of most men. I believe that the work of the men and women in the great profession to which I belong is complementary. As sex differentiation has been abolished by the law of the land I hope that ultimately it will pass from the minds of men in my profession.
I believe that the Minister can help. He has helped by reaffirming the decision of previous Ministers since the office was held by the present Home Secretary in 1944. I think he can help further by encouraging the recognition of the claims of teachers to an adequate professional salary. I share the view expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Darwen that both the unions concerned will reach out to each other in the years ahead, and towards accepting the equal status of the two sexes which comprise our great profession.

3.52 p.m.

Sir Hendrie Oakshott: As time is short I will not detain the House long. I agree wholeheartedly with one thing said by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), and that is the inadequacy of salaries in the teaching profession. If I remember rightly, I said something about this subject in my maiden speech in the House about ten years ago.
I support my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke). I believe that there is a good case here. One of the points that he made is, I consider, very sound. To talk of the importance of unity and solidarity in the profession is to refer to something which is vital to it. If there are between one-quarter and one-third of the men teachers in that profession who are dissatisfied and disgruntled I do not think that it is the best way in which to achieve unity and solidarity. The hon. Member for Itchen spoke of the dangers of fragmentation, but that is exactly what we are getting now. The N.A.S. has been pressing all these years for representation on Burnham and failing. In view of this failure, on would have expected the membership of the Association to drop, but it has not, which surely is an indication that they are sincerely convinced that they are not properly represented at the


moment. Were that not the case, I believe that membership would have fallen. I do not wish to introduce a note of controversy into the debate, but I think that it is a little unfair, therefore, to dismiss this union as a "dissident" union, with all the rather unpleasant connotations of that word.
In the friendliest way, I would say a word to the N.A.S. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen indicated that in his view the Association has dropped its opposition to equal pay. If that is so, I do not know of it, but if it has why does not the Association say so publicly?

Mr. I. J. Pitman: It has publicly said that it has not dropped its opposition to equal pay.

Sir H. Oakshott: I heard what was said by the hon. Member for Itchen about the last conference report. As every hon. Member who has spoken has said, this is a battle which was fought long ago. I remember Ralph Morley and all the others who took part in it. It seems to me that it would be sensible to accept the present situation whether we like it or not. It is something which will not be reversed and the N.A.S. case would be strengthened if it did so.
Having said that, I repeat that I believe that the N.A.S. has a good case. I know how much my right hon. Friend has the welfare of this profession at heart; I hope that he will be able to reconsider this matter, and I add my plea to that of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen to the National Union of Teachers to bury the hatchet.

3.55 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: My neighbour, the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletch & Cooke), invariably speaks with such moderation that I always hesitate to differ from him except on what are purely party matters. But on this occasion I think it is right that I should intervene briefly to express my general support fox the action which the Minister has taken.
Like all hon. Members who have spoken, I share the dismay felt at the disunity in the profession and at the bitterness which sometimes is shown by the various parties to the dispute. Indeed, I think it quite probable that the profes-

sion will not achieve the status to which it is entitled so long as this disunity and disagreement continues.
In my view, the decision as to representation on the Burnham Committee is one which rests firmly on the shoulders of the Minister. The Minister has to decide in the light of the information which is available to him what basis of representation will best serve the interests of the educational system as a whole, and I think the hon. and learned Member was wrong to liken this to a case of ordinary labour relations. The Minister is not in the position of an employer to whom the hon. and learned Member likened him. He is exercising a statutory discretion entrusted to him by this House.
I personally should not feel it right to make his exercise of that discretion a party matter or to question the way in which he is exercising it unless it seemed to me that there was some clear abuse of the power which the House has entrusted to the right hon. Gentleman. Quite obviously there is no abuse of his power in this case. In my view the arguments which the right hon. Gentleman set out in his letter of 23rd March to the National Association of Schoolmasters, to which the hon. and learned Member referred, were perfectly proper.
The Minister has stated his view that representation should be by types of schools and not according to numbers. The hon. and learned Member for Darwen of course was perfectly right in saying that the Minister is not obliged to put that interpretation upon the duty which rests upon him. Nevertheless, although he is not obliged to do so, it seems a perfectly appropriate way for him to interpret the discretion which has been given to him. By accepting this criterion, the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to claim that he is serving the best interests of the educational system as a whole.
In reaching that decision the right hon. Gentleman followed the precedent which was set by the present Home Secretary when he was Minister of Education in 1944 and addressed the first meeting of the newly constituted Burnham Committee. The same view was taken by a very great Labour Minister of Education, Mr. George Tomlinson, and, at a later stage—as my


hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) has reminded us— by the present Minister for Science.
If one accepts the criterion that the Minister has laid down, the question of numbers does not enter into the case at all, but—

Mr. Peter Kirk: If that is so—and I accept that criterion—the question of to what union a teacher belongs does not enter into the case for representation on the Burnham Committee.

Mr. Greenwood: The point there is that numbers are irrelevant, but what is relevant is the types of school repre-senented by the organisations the Minister is appointing to the Committee. I do not think there is any cause at all to question the Minister's claim that the large majority of men teachers in the types of school with which the National Association of Schoolmasters is concerned are still otherwise represented on the Burnham Committee.

Mr. Kirk: No.

Mr. Greenwood: Therefore, for the reasons I have advanced, I accept the criterion the Minister has laid down. I think the Minister is right and I think it would be wrong to create a situation in which the controversy over equal pay could be revived under circumstances which I believe could only damage the feducational system as a whole.

3.59 p.m.

The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles):: The varying opinions on this matter which we have heard moderately but firmly expressed this afternoon demonstrate that this is a case which is very difficult indeed to decide and one on which it is possible to differ with great sincerity. I found it a hard decision to take, because I knew that whichever way the decision went it must cause great disquiet to people whose opinions I very much respect.
I can assure the House that the application of the National Association of Schoolmasters to be represented on the Burnham Committee was most carefully considered and, in accordance with the undertaking given by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. G. Lloyd), I personally

examined all the evidence afresh. I came to the same conclusion as my predecessors—that the National Association of Schoolmasters should not be admitted to the Burnham Committee. The House will wish to know the reasons behind that decision.
I should like to quote the relevant Section of the 1944 Act. This governs the matter which we are discussing. Under that Act the Minister is required to secure
That for the purpose of considering the remuneration of teachers there shall be one or more committees approved by him consisting of persons appointed by bodies representing local education authorities and teachers respectively.
The point to be noted there, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Greenwood), is that which bodies should be represented is left entirely to the Minister's discretion. That is not the normal practice in negotiating machinery, where the addition of a new trade union or a new association to the relevant body is a matter for those already represented. What we are discussing is a different case, where recognition is not given by those already on the panel on the staff side but is entirely at the Minister's discretion.
The present constitution of the Burnham Committees was designed in 1945 to meet the changes brought about by the Butler Act. The Burnham Main Committee, which deals with salaries of teachers in primary and secondary schools, took the place of the former elementary and secondary committees. In settling the constitution of this Committee, the aim was to reflect the general interests of the teaching profession by types of school. This was not an arbitrary decision, as one of my hon. Friends suggested. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary had no choice but to reflect the pattern of organisation of teachers at that time, which was by types of school. I consider, as I am sure does the House, that if they are fairly represented by types of school, that is of very great advantage, because the education system is very large, there are many different kinds of school and we want the particular interests of each type of school represented.
In the event, therefore, the sixteen members of the Teachers' Panel of the Burnham Main Committee were appointed


by the National Union of Teachers to represent: the teachers in primary and secondary modern schools, and the remaining ten seats on the Teachers' Panel were given to the Joint Four Secondary Associations and the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutions to ensure representation of teachers in secondary grammar and secondary technical schools.
In considering new applications for membership of the Burnham Committee, our guiding principle has always been to see that the Committee continues to give adequate representation to teachers in all types of schools. I believe that it can fairly be claimed to do so today. The grammar and technical secondary schools are represented separately. The question at issue is whether the teachers in the primary and secondary modern schools are properly represented by the N.U.T.
The N.U.T.'s serving membership is 201,000 teachers, of which some 185,000 teachers are, on the best information I can get, serving in primary and all-age and secondary modern schools. Of this 185,000, some 60,000 are men. Then comes the really crucial figure. These 60,000 amount to about 75 per cent. of all men now in primary and secondary modern schools.
In primary and secondary modern schools the number of schoolmasters who are members of the N.U.T. is about three times the total membership of the N.A.S., on the assumption that all members of the N.A.S. are serving teachers and that all of them are serving in primary and secondary modern schools. I do not know if that assumption is correct. Therefore, on the arithmetic— this is the first point—there is no case for saying that schoolmasters in primary and secondary modern schools are not well represented on the Burnham Main Committee today.
There is another side to the question. What in effect I have been asked to do is to introduce a different form of representation according to a particular sectional interest, in this case men. It seems to me, as it has always done to my predecessors, that this would cut right across the well-tried basis upon which the Burnham Main Committee has hitherto been constituted and would lead to an undesirable opposition between the

sexes and also between teachers in the same types of school.
Moreover—in many ways, from the point of view of practical politics, this is the more serious point—once the present clear-cut basis of the constitution of the Committee is abandoned, claims are bound to be made by other bodies of teachers who, in the past, have been reasonably content to be represented by the present membership of the Burnham Committee. Indeed, I have already received one such application. Undoubtedly others would come in.

Mr. Robert Jenkins: My right hon. Friend said that, if the National Association of Schoolmasters were admitted, it would mean that he would start bringing in men as men. Among the representatives at present there are associations which solely represent men.

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, but only in the grammar school world, where they have a federation and speak with one voice. That is a very different proposition. There, the Joint Four is precisely the name given to the grammar school representatives and we never have the sex differentiation which we have in the case of the N.A.S.

Mr. Robert Jenkins: Mr. Robert Jenkins rose—

Sir D. Eccles: I must continue. I am due to finish in a few minutes.
I was saying that I have already received one application from another body following the application of the N.A.S., and it is quite certain that I shall receive others. I cannot say precisely where that would lead to, but I have a very strong belief that it would be bound to result in serious fragmentation of the profession.
I should like now to say a few words about the question of unity, which was raised by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) in his very moderate and well presented case. Because in the letter which I wrote to the N.A.S. I laid some emphasis on the importance of unity to the interests of the teaching profession as a whole, I have been accused of advocating a closed shop principle and of wanting only one big union.
I can understand how someone could come to that conclusion, but it is quite unfounded. It is perfectly true that I


was very anxious, as I shall always be, to avoid doing anything which might prejudice a move towards unity, since I believe that such a development would lend greater strength and prestige to the teaching profession. I accept, as the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) said, that there was a time when employers liked fragmentation, but it is not so today. But the means whereby greater unity can be attained in the teaching profession is a matter for the teachers themselves. For example, at one time the N.A.S. advocated a federal council, but it claimed that in such a body it should have an equal voice with the N.U.T. That proposal did not get much further. The N.U.T. at the moment is considering an association above its own organisation, which others besides itself can join.
I have no doubt that if I had decided for the N.A.S. I should have been accused of deliberately encouraging the fragmentation of the profession. The critics would have been very quick to remind me that I owed it to the teaching profession not, so to speak, to put an official stamp on disunity. At no time has the N.U.T. suggested that if the N.A.S. were given representation on Burnham it—the N.U.T.—would leave the Committee. I am confident that it would do nothing of the kind. On the other hand, I cannot think that the House would wish to see the Minister take a step that would encourage teachers in primary and secondary modern schools to organise themselves into rival unions based on sex.
I should like to record my appreciation of the work done in schools by members of the N.A.S. In many parts of the country schools could not get on without them. I know that the men in the profession come forward and take posts of responsibility, and that if they did not we could not carry on with appointments to headships and posts of special responsibility. It is my hope that in the interests of good relations in the schools the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses will find some way of uniting in order that they may give advice which will carry the maximum weight with the Minister and local authorities, and in order that they may present to us the case for improvements in the service, of which there will always

be many, and which we would like to consider.
As Minister I feel that it is not my business to act in any way which would prejudice the alliance between schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. This is a very great service. We are now teaching 7 million children in our schools, and it must be the aim of any Minister of Education—and a Minister of Education is not the employer of teachers; the employer is the local authority. Under the Act, I stand in the position of having the duty to promote the efficiency of the service as a whole—it must be the aim of a Minister of Education to do all he can to build up the best possible relations in the senior commonroom and to further the prestige of the teaching profession and the esteem which the public has for it today.

BRITISH LIMBLESS EX-SERVICEMEN'S ASSOCIATION

4.14 p.m.

Sir Robert Cary: It is a long time since we had a discussion on the Floor of the House on the subject of limbless ex-Servicemen. We always associate the limbless with the two great wars through which the nation has passed in this century, but as a result of industrial injury and the great toll of road accidents which occur every year there is also a need for national concern outside the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association.
This afternoon, we are concerned with the organisation known as B.L.E.S.M.A. I have the privilege to be chairman of an all-party B.L.E.S.M.A. committee in this House. I also want to take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for the decision to supply small motor cars to the disabled. This is a matter that must be in the mind of every hon. Member who travels about our countryside.
I have always been dissatisfied with the vehicle with which the limbless ex-Service man has been supplied. Only to the limbless man with 100 per cent. war disability has it been possible for the Government to supply the Morris 1000 small motor car. The Government, in their wisdom, have now seen fit to take seriously the provision of a motor car, or


Minicar, to all the grievously disabled. We have thought about this a great deal within the organisations of B.L.E.S.M.A. It has been thought about a lot in the Department, in the British Legion and elsewhere, and in the world of the motor car manufacturers and traders.
Fortunately, we have the invention of the Minicar, which is very small and plentiful on our roads, and everyone wants to acquire one. I am delighted to know that the Government will at last make it possible for all limbless ex-Servicemen to have a small motor car. I hope that my hon. Friend will pass on to the Chancellor of the Exchequer the suggestion that the privilege which applies to the Morris 1000 should also apply to this small motor car and that it should be free from Purchase Tax.
The provision of artificial limbs and appliances is now an integral part of the National Health Service, but I do not want to elaborate matters which affect directly the responsibility of the National Health Service. I want to put as briefly and as cogently as I can two broad questions to the Parliamentary Secretary. First, will she bear in mind that I in no way deride the great work which has been done at Roehampton for so many years? That is not the purpose of the debate. I would ask my hon. Friend if the work at Roehampton could be decentralised by the creation of area limb clinics attached to the main orthapaedic hospitals. This is a thought in the minds of all those who study the affairs of the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association. Is it possible to get easier facilities brought to our limbless by having adequately staffed limb centres attached to the main hospitals in different areas of the country? That would be a step forward in the development and range of the great National Health Service itself. It would be a progressive step, and I have asked my hon. Friend if she and her advisers would look at this problem of whether technically and in a practical sense any such step forward is possible.
My second question concerns that which is vital to a limb centre. It is the question of limb fitters who are employed by the limb contractors and who therefore do not come under the control of the Minister of Health. Here

is a category of specialists whose whole life, and aspirations, if need be, ought to be upgraded. This work has a certain likeness to nursing and a certain amount of emotion in it. The fitting of limbs can be a tedious exercise, with so many persons to see and provide for and with whom it is necesary to exercise the greatest degree of patience. I should like to see the limb fitters centralised as a qualified body. While I acknowledge that the short training courses at Roehampton do good, in my opinion they are not enough. I should like limb-fitters to be upgraded to the point where they would become fully qualified orthopaedic technicians. This would give to the limb-fitter a new cachet, a new status which he does not enjoy at present.
May I draw to my hon. Friend's attention the research which is carried out at Roehampton. I regret that a recent deputation of the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association to the Scandinavian countries was a little nonplussed to find that its hosts did not think very highly of the Association's artificial limbs and appliances. Indeed, surprise was expressed at the fact that our own limbless were not enjoying the greatest benefits of research and modelling which were becoming commonplace in other countries such as Germany and America.
Many years have passed since Roehampton first carried out research into the improvement of artificial limbs, but in recent years very little has emerged from that great centre. It hurts me to hear of a deputation of members of my own association going to a Scandinavian country and finding that their artificial limbs were not greatly admired and, indeed, were almost laughed at. That should not happen to an organisation from a great country like ours with its technical skill, for no country has a greater tradition in the care of sick, wounded and those in distress. Indeed, the existence on the Government Front Bench of Ministers representing the Ministry of Health and of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance is a guarantee of that fact, and the creation of the National Health Service is one of the most progressive things which have occurred in this century.
I therefore appeal to my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to regard this not as some small sectional matter which affects only the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association but as an important step to further the interests of the great traditions in health and amenity which survive in our country.

4.23 p.m.

Mr. L. M. Lever: I join with the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) in thanking you, Mr. Speaker, for giving us this opportunity to voice some of the grievances in the minds not only of the limbless ex-Servicemen, but also of the general public throughout the country.
Since the formation of the all-party committee of the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association, of which I have the honour to be the honorary secretary and the hon. Member for Withington its chairman, we have been able to secure from various Governments enormous sums of money for the limbless ex-Servicemen; and not least of the amenities provided is the B.M.C. Minicar, which will be a boon to many limbless ex-Servicemen who will be able to drive with others instead of driving alone.
I do not want the Minister to think that one is unduly critical of the service provided by the Ministry. On the contrary, I am sure that the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance provides one of the finest services in this country. I have always found the various Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries most helpful in discussing improvements that we wish to make on behalf of this most important and deserving section of ex-Servicemen.
I support what the hon. Member for Withington has said. He referred particularly to the delays which occur in repair and renewal. Recently, in answer to a Question I put to the Minister, it was admitted that it takes three or four months for artificial limbs to be repaired at Roehampton and about 98 days to secure a new limb from the date of first measurement. This ought not to be. A protracted period between measurement and delivery serves only to aggravate the existing difficulties in fitting because, in the interim, the stump condition often

completely changes from what it was at the time of original measurement. I earnestly ask the Minister to do everything possible to reduce the long delays.
Decentralisation seems to be the only solution to this problem. If there were special clinics at orthopaedic hospitals in every regional hospital board area of the country, we should be able to reduce the delays immeasurably. Therefore, in this matter of delay in repairs and renewals, the plea must be for decentralisation from Roehampton. Roehampton has done and is doing very valuable service, but, inevitably, it cannot cope with all the demands made upon it. With 120 out-patient attendances each day, it is not possible to maintain the necessary personal and clinical approach to limb fitting in present conditions there.
Limb fitters are doing very good work. They are laymen. As we all do, they gain in efficiency by experience. But the artificial limb fitter should be recognised as a skilled person within the framework of a profession. He ought to be an orthopaedic technician, someone like the physiotherapist, having an understanding of the processes and the stresses of the human body. It is a matter of science. We live in a scientific age, and, whenever any aspect of our national life calls for the application of science, each person concerned should be fully qualified by examination for the work on which he is engaged. In America, there are special courses at the universities for limb fitters. In Germany, there are qualified orthopaedic technicians. What those countries can do this country could do better, once it set its mind to it.
The hon. Member for Withington referred to the research work at Roehampton. Ideas have been pouring through Roehampton since the establishment of the research department in 1947, thirteen years ago, but, apart from the suction socket limb for above-the-knee amputees, there has been no improvement in the design or fitting of artificial limbs. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, improvements have been made in other countries. We should keep abreast of them. If we do, we can provide for our limbless ex-Service men what other countries are providing for theirs, and better.
There is not sufficient information available to limbless ex-Service men.


Admittedly, those who have lost their limbs in war are issued with artificial limbs and appliances as a direct entitlement. The National Health Service has rightly given to the disabled amputee the opportunity to choose the type of limb, fitting and suspension, and the Ministry's limb surgeons, of necessity, must advise the patient. But it seems to me that there ought to be some display for disabled limbless ex-Service men of the various types of limb from which they can choose.
The National Health Service patient is given the opportunity of choice. Why should not limbless ex-Service men have a choice of fitting? A consultative body should be established in this country which carries consumer representation. There is full liaison between the Ministry and the contractors, and I am sure that both are combining to give the best possible service to limbless ex-Service men, but, as 93 per cent. of all artificial legs are provided by one manufacturer it seems to me that the system ought to be loosened so as to provide a wider choice.
In countries abroad much emphasis is placed on sports for the disabled as part of their physical rehabilitation. I wonder whether the Ministry will take the initiative and call together organisations in this country which are concerned with the problems of the disabled in an endeavour to secure the creation of an organisation in the United Kingdom which might initiate sports festivals and recreational facilities for the handicapped on similar lines to those developed by Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, at Stoke Mandeville, for paraplegics.
We know that the Ministry is as concerned as we are to provide the best possible service for these people, and we are grateful to the Ministry. I therefore hope that we shall have a reply from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary which will enable us to go ahead in establishing an even better service for limbless ex-Service men. When I was addressing the Manchester branch of the Association of which I am honorary president, I was very pleased to hear how grateful these men are for the manner in which the Ministry is seeking to improve their situation. As I say, with the assurances which I hope the hon. Lady will give us, we will be enabled to go ahead in improving the position of ex-Service men who are deserving of our fullest support.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. Eric Johnson: I am very grateful for this opportunity to support my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) and the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever). There is very little that I can add to their contributions, but I should like to join in the expressions of gratitude for the provision of this small car, which is of tremendous importance to limbless and disabled men.
I should like, first, to stress this feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction in the minds of the limbless that there has been so little improvement in the type of artificial limb. We all recognise the great and valuable work which is being done at Roehampton, and the delay which has occurred seems to have been unduly long.
My hon. Friend the Member for Withington mentioned the development of artificial limbs in other countries. I hope that my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will tell us why, as these limbs have been thoroughly tested and used successfully in other countries, when they come over here they have to go through the whole process of research and testing again before they can be used. The suggestion that there should be more clinics in orthopaedic hospitals for people with artificial limbs is most valuable.
Equally valuable is the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Ardwick that a greater amount of information should be given to the amputees themselves so that they can see displays of the limbs. It must be difficult for a person to decide what is most suitable unless he can see a fairly wide choice. I remind my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that not so long ago, as the result of a debate in the House, we had a display upstairs of spectacle frames. We do not necessarily want to see a display of artificial limbs here, but it would be helpful if there were displays of them all over the country in the great cities, like Manchester and Birmingham. There should also be more close consultation between the Ministry and its contractors and the people who are to use the limbs.
This has been a brief but valuable debate and I know that my hon. Friend


will reply with the usual amount of sympathy that she feels for all these people. We have been, perhaps, a little critical. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that on the whole we have been constructive and that she will at least be able to give practical effect to some of the ideas which have been put before her this afternoon.

4.37 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): It is a little singular that the three contributions to this debate have all come from Manchester Members.

Mr. L. M. Lever: Manchester always leads the way.

Miss Pitt: Manchester must have a tremendous, big heart. I am glad that this subject has been chosen for the last of our Adjournment debates today and I hope that what I have to say will show that the needs of the war pensioners are very much in the mind of my Ministry and that there is a continuing interest in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, as is shown by the presence here this afternoon of my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to that Ministry.
All the hon. Members who have spoke have acknowledged with gratitude the statement by my right hon. and learned Friend on 4th April about the supply of cars. My right hon. and learned Friend is glad that he has been able to take this step. It has given pleasure generally and collectively to all the Service and ex-Service organisations which, over the years, have been pressing for larger vehicles for war pensioners instead of the powered tricycles at present supplied.
The deputation which came to see my right hon. and learned Friend on 5th April—as it turned out, the day after the announcement was made in the House—and which was arranged and led by General Sir Roy Bucher, chairman of the British Legion, and represented forty-four Service and ex-Service organisations, expressed its considerable satisfaction at my right hon. and learned Friend's statement.
My right hon. and learned Friend told the deputation that, in his view, the appropriate type of vehicle seemed to be the B.M.C. type of small car. I should like also to mention in this con-

text of cars for the war disabled the interest of the chairman of the I.T.A., who tried one of the B.M.C. small cars as soon as they appeared and published an interesting report in the current number of the Association's journal. I realise that I am using the initials that we all use, but I should, perhaps, explain that the I.T.A. is the Invalid Tricycle Association.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) asked about research, as did the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever). I answered two Parliamentary Questions on this subject from the hon. Member for Ardwick early last month. In particular, I said of the research department at Roehampton that limbs and foreign components are tested there with a view to incorporating any approved beneficial features in British limbs. I said in reply to his other Question:
The work of the research department is guided by a committee which includes the Deans of the Institute of Orthopaedics and of the City and Guilds School of Engineering and the scope of its work is constantly being extended."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th March, 1960; Vol. 618, c. 178–9.]
The Minister told B.L.E.S.M.A.—I must use the initials this time—when it came to see us on 8th December last, when we had a very long interview which lasted two hours and when all the points were discussed, that he could assure the Association that patients in this country could obtain at Exchequer expense the best limbs available here, and that the British limb was a good limb.
Here I want to answer what appeared in this debate to be implied criticism of the British limb. I do not think it was deliberate, but I would answer it in fairness to the limb makers. Shortly after we received that deputation in December Group Captain Bader who is a member of B.L.E.S.M.A.'s advisory committee, wrote an article in the News of the World. He has British limbs, one above the knee and one below the knee. In his article he gave strong support to the Minister's view, and he said he had seen artificial limbs in many countries, including the United States of America, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, and he said:
I have not yet seen one which I would exchange for the British Government issue.


Speaking of legs he refuted emphatically the suggestion that Britain was out of date in its approach to the problem of artificial limbs, and he paid tribute to the fitters. Coming from a man of that status, who has made such gallant efforts himself, I think that that is a tribute one would most warmly welcome.
The point has been made today about having all the limbs on display. I should like to reply by telling hon. Members that all the limbs of the different makers are on display at the centres.

Mr. L. M. Lever: All the limbs?

Miss Pitt: All the limb centres have on show a display of the various makes.

Mr. Lever: Are the disabled informed or advised about them?

Miss Pitt: The disabled go there for fitting them and axe able to see them. I myself have seen them when I have visited Roehampton. I have seen a display of arms, legs, joints, and so on.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) raised the question of the siting of the limb centres. He asked that the work of Roehampton should be decentralised and suggested that each orthopædic hospital should have a limb clinic attached. I was not quite sure what he meant. In December B.L.E.S.M.A. suggested that the main orthopædic hospital in each region should have an artificial limb and appliance centre attached to it. There are 39 orthopædic hospitals, but many general hospitals have an orthopædic department, and that was why I was in some doubt. In the Ministry we decided some time ago that this was to be our general principle, but there are practical and financial difficulties in going ahead quickly.
When we talk about limb centres it has to be remembered that most of them— Roehampton is the main exception—deal with the organisation of the invalid vehicle and chair services as well, and also with medical and surgical appliances generally for the war pensioners. A large artificial limb and appliance centre is about 20.000 sq. ft. and costs £100,000 to build. The limb part takes up most of the room, as the consulting and fitting rooms, walking training school and workshops and most of the space has to be on the ground floor unless there is a lift.

Centres have to be near bus stops, and there has to be plenty of space for ambulances and for testing patients in tricycles.
The pattern of the present centres is, of course, an historic one. Most of the Ministry of Pensions limb centres started as part of its regional offices, and, except at Roehampton and Leeds, we took them over in office accommodation. We want to have them in hospitals but as there are 21 centres of different sizes in England and Wales which do limb fittings—and nine others which do not do limb fittings—it must be a very costly business to get them all in the right place —beside a hospital with an orthopædic department.
We have to fit in with general hospital planning, and it is most difficult to find really good sites for this specialised purpose, as I well know in regard to my own City of Birmingham, because long before I came to the Ministry of Health I had been pressing that Department with all my vigour to try to get the present limb fitting centre in Birmingham removed from its unsuitable city centre site.

Sir R. Cary: Then it is only sheer cost that is the barrier now to the fulfilment of the scheme?

Miss Pitt: It is not only cost. It is finding a suitable site adjacent to an existing hospital and, in addition, that hospital having ground available on which we can develop. I can speak with some knowledge of this, because I know of the very long search in Birmingham.

Mr. L. M. Lever: It is the same in Manchester.

Miss Pitt: I appreciate Manchester's difficulties, too. Some solution has been found there, but it is not the best one. It is not as good as we would have liked.
We could, for example, think of the main orthopædic hospital in each region only if it were in the right place not only for general communications in the area, but also for immediate local communications in order to avoid too much walking for the disabled, and if there was land available. What we are doing is that where a centre has to be moved because it is inadequate we plan, in general —there may be future exceptions—to site the new centre in or beside a hospital conveniently situated for the limbless which has an orthopaedic department.
My right hon. and learned Friend told B.L.E.S.M.A. in December, and he also told the deputation last week, that changes could not be made quickly, but we are now making some progress and I should like to tell the House what progress we have already found possible.
A year or two ago we moved the Wolverhampton Centre to the New Cross Hospital. This is only a very small centre. In Liverpool, we hope to start building very soon at Mill Road Hospital. In Birmingham, we hope to start building this year at Selly Oak Hospital, in Leicester at Leicester Royal Infirmary, and in Portsmouth at St. Mary's Hospital.
I said in answer to a Question on 3rd March that the Minister was considering whether an additional limb fitting centre should be established in the London area. A new centre in the area would take some of the load off Roehampton, which is certainly heavy, but no decision has yet been reached on the project. We are at different stages of discussion with regional hospital boards about new centres in other towns to replace existing centres.
I believe that B.L.E.S.M.A. considers that if some of the load were taken off the Roehampton Limb Fitting Centre delays in repairs and in the manufacture of new limbs would be reduced. But this does not necessarily follow. A new centre in the London area would reduce the "on-the-spot" repairs now done at Roehampton for patients going there, but would not really help with delays in renewals of limbs—making new limbs—and major repairs, which have to be done at the factories, whether they are Roehampton factories or factories elsewhere.
While we have not brought the limb service within the National Health Service and it remains a centralised service, as we think it must be at present, our aim is to bring the centres and the hospitals closer together. Professionally, we bring our limb doctors into closer association with orthopaedic surgeons, and there is a steady flow of orthopaedic surgeons and physical medicine consultants for courses at Roehampton.
Another point raised by my hon. Friend was that he thought that the limb fitters should be centralised as a qualified body, that the status of the limb fitter should be uplifted and that the limb

fitter should be called an orthopaedic technician. B.L.E.S.M.A. told my right hon. and learned Friend in December that limb fitters were not always sufficiently trained for their task, and that they were primarily technicians who ought, in addition, to have a wide knowledge of medical matters. It suggested that there should be a national diploma and that over a period of time only those qualified should provide limb-fitting services and that the institution of training courses should be proceeded with at once.
Limb fitters, who are employees of the independent limb manufacturers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Withington said, and not employees of my Ministry, have an important rôle in the limb service. They are members of the team serving the patients, and partners of our doctors in the service. Certainly in our minds, and, I am sure, in the minds of the patients, who always like to be looked after by the same fitter, there is no question about their status and importance.
There are, of course, orthopaedic technicians employed in the National Health Service, but that title covers a variety of different kinds of work and not, I think, such responsible work as the limb fitter undertakes. Limb fitters are not our employees and it is not, therefore, for us to consider whether their title should be changed, but it is an honoured title that has been in use for many years and expresses just what its bearer does and will go on doing. We have not heard of any desire on the part of the limb fitters themselves for a change of name.
Limb fitters do not, I understand, have to have formal qualifications but are given considerable practical training. The practice of one of the major manufacturing firms illustrates this. When a vacancy occurs a trainee is carefully selected from existing employees. He goes into the fitting rooms on probation for six months to ensure that he is the right type of man to become a limb fitter handling patients. If he passes his probation, he is appointed a trainee fitter for three years. He is then appointed as an assistant fitter for two years or more.
A fitter is also encouraged to study textbooks on anatomy and the general principles of limb fitting. During his work with our doctors the trainee learns


a great deal about medical matters and from time to time the doctors at Roehampton arrange special courses there for fitters from all over the country, particularly on new developments—as recently, on the Canadian tilting table limb.
My right hon. and learned Friend told B.L.E.S.M.A. in December that he accepted that limb fitters should be adequately trained, but the men were not Government employees and he did not feel able to impose on them and on the firms which employed them any restrictions which would affect the normal labour relationship in the industry. At present the work was done by people with considerable training and experience and although the point raised by B.L.E.S.M.A. about formal training with diplomas could be pursued, there could be no specific promise of action, or dictation to the firms concerned.
We are discussing with manufacturers the question of training. Whether anything will emerge as regards formal training cannot be foreseen at this stage. The intake of trainees in one year is very small. In the largest firm it is only two or three a year. I am informed that in one of the major firms the average experience of their fitters is twenty years, which suggests that the steps which I have described turn out good men who stay in their jobs.
The question has been raised of new limbs and major repairs. Minor repairs of limbs are done on the spot at limb centres. For major repairs a limb has to go back to the factory, and a new process of limb fitting is needed, just as in the supply of a new one. Major repairs take much longer than we would like and we wish to improve this.
I said on 7th March that the periods were about 98 days and between three and four months respectively. The war pensioner waiting for a new limb or a major repair does have a duplicate limb which he can use, but in many cases he does not like wearing it, preferring his favourite. We would like to encourage amputees to become accustomed to both limbs.
The periods are too long—they are longer than they were a year ago. In March, 1959, the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) was told that they were 85 and 80 days. One of

the main reasons was the stoppage of work which occurred last year at the Roehampton factories. The delay, when the men were out for some weeks, followed by the annual holidays, was never made up. We have been discussing with the manufacturers what can be done, but there are difficulties. At Roehampton, for example, there is lack of space for expansion of the factories.
On our side, we have taken several steps. The times include not only the period when the limb is being made, but the periods when the limb is at the centre for the patient to be called up and fitted. We have reviewed our procedure to reduce delays. While patients have freedom of choice, which is very important, they are told which contractors from time to time can offer the best delivery dates. Our current information is that the times for producing new limbs and doing major repairs are somewhat less now than they were in March when I gave the figures, but the time for major repairs is slightly misleading. For all the repairs, major and minor, the average period in March was slightly less than it was a year ago—33 against 36 days. I am not complacent about that and we would like to improve it still further.
When representatives of B.L.E.S.M.A. came to see the Minister in December, they asked that there should be a consultative council on limbs, or, alternatively, that they should be represented on the Standing Advisory Committee on Artificial Limbs. That Committee is an expert committee composed of surgeons and engineers, one of whom wears an artificial limb. The Minister told B.L.E.S.M.A. that he thought that a consulative council was inappropriate and when writing to B.L.E.S.M.A. later, as he did after the meeting, he said that he was not satisfied that it would be the right method to change the nature of the expert committee by adding lay members to it. The sort of association which he would like to see developed was between B.L.E.S.M.A. and his officers at Roehampton, so he encouraged visits to Roehampton to discuss ideas about and criticism of the limb service.
Recently, at Dr. Ritchie's invitation, the Chairman and Secretary of B.L.E.S.M.A. and another member visited Roehampton. They saw the work on


research which is being done there and had a full discussion with our officers. We hope that they found it useful and that they will accept the invitation which they were given to visit again from time to time.
When the Minister saw the much larger deputation last week, from the British Legion, the Royal Air Force Association and B.L.E.S.M.A., he said that he hoped that representatives of other interested organisations would also go and see the work which was being done at Roehampton. We understand that the Chairman of the British Legion is going quite soon.
I want also to refer to recreational facilities, a matter which was also raised. When B.L.E.S.M.A. sent a deputation last December, the Minister explained that that was really a job for the local welfare authorities, but he promised to

take up the question with them and he has since written to the local authority associations.
Finally, I think that the limb fitting service—and I have had occasion to inform myself about it in considerable detail since I came to the Ministry, and one of my first jobs in the Ministry was to go to Roehampton—is a good service. I take the opportunity afforded by the debate to pay tribute to it, to the limb manufacturers and the fitters and all those in my Department who provide this essential and very humane service to men who have been disabled in Her Majesty's service.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Five o'clock, till Tuesday, 26th April, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 12th April.